A Left Turn at Albuquerque
by andrewjameswilliams
Summary: When a weapons test goes horribly wrong the SDF-3 and a group of Robotech warships are sent hurtling into the Star Wars galaxy and a confrontation with the forces of the sinister Galactic Empire. *Chapter Nine new version*
1. Chapter 1

_**A Left Turn at Albuquerque**_

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the characters that I am about to mangle around for my own amusement, sadly all Robotech and Star Wars characters remain the property of Harmony Gold, Disney and Lucasfilm Ltd respectively, I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit whatsoever from their use. So please keep the legal attack dogs, also known as lawyers, firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give to anyone.**

 **Author Notes: This story is a crossover story between Robotech and Star Wars. Timeline wise the story takes place during and immediately after the neutron-s missile test covered in the Prequel to the Shadow Chronicles comic for Robotech - though you don't have to have read it as this is going somewhat AU based on some of my own ideas, especially how I personally refuse to believe that the SDF-3 would be allowed to go anywhere alone since she's got the only working protoculture matrix – outside whatever the Invid use to turn the Flowers of Life into protoculture – on board. For Star Wars events begin a few weeks prior to the Battle of Scarif.**

 **Also, characters from both Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Star Wars: Rebels will be appearing in the story though as the fate of many of the Rebels characters especially the _Ghost_ crews two resident Jedi are not yet known things are certain to go AU from whatever happens in the show.**

* * *

 **Chapter One**

"T-Minus 3 minutes to neutron-s missile test."

Sitting in his command chair at the back of the SDF-3's bridge Admiral Richard 'Rick' Hunter resisted, just, the impulse to scowl at tactical officer Lieutenant Kyler Pren's announcement. He honestly wasn't sure that they were doing the right thing by allowing this weapon to continue to exist. The data they had on it, data they'd recovered from the computers used by the followers of that traitorous bastard T.R Edwards, was frightening. Per those decoded files the explosive filling the warhead, made as it was from matter harvested – through some mechanism he couldn't hope to understand – from the corona of a neutron star, was extremely dense and had potentially the power to literally annihilate the entire surface of a planet.

He couldn't help but wonder what the hell they needed a weapon like that for?

It wasn't like they already had some extremely powerful and destructive weapons; between reflex cannons and missiles – not to mention the newer synchro cannons – modern Robotech warships already possessed enough firepower to glass an Earth-sized planet in short order. Did they really need weapons capable of melting a planets crust and setting the atmosphere on fire all at once as well? Should they have that power as he couldn't help but worry what they'd do with it? It would, after all, be far too easy to let that power go to their heads and end up on the same dark path that both the Invid Regent and the Robotech Masters had walked as he understood that there was a great deal of truth in that old Terran saying about how absolute power corrupted absolutely. Having the capability to destroy the life supporting capacity of a planet with a single weapon was, in his mind at least, a dangerous step on the road to becoming potentially as bad as the Masters or the Regent if not worse.

His unease about the weapons had only increased after Dr Lang had gone over Dr Zand's notes on the weapons and compared them to the information on this kind of advanced plasma explosive that the Haydonites had shared with them. Emil had noticed discrepancies in numerous areas, discrepancies that suggested that the weapon that they now possessed was both more powerful and more dangerous than they currently believed. After Janice, had agreed with him – that the math didn't add up right – Emil had approached him with his concerns already being aware of his own concern about the missiles. Which had led to their current situation.

"T-Minus 2 minutes to neutron-s missile test."

Rick sighed aloud. If he could have he would have ordered the Liberation Fleet, currently being led by the SDF-4 _Liberator_ under General Gunther Reinhardt, gathering at Moon Base Aluce in preparation to drive the Invid off Earth to leave the four neutron-s missiles they had with them on the base. At least until after this field test was run and they had hard information on the true level of destruction this weapons technology could unleash. But sadly, that had not been his call to make but the Preparatory Council's call and they'd decided to allow a limited number of the weapons to be carried. The most he'd been able to do was give Reinhardt strict instructions on when the weapons could be used and when they couldn't.

He just hoped the man, who had a notorious hate for the Invid, wouldn't jump the gun, defy his orders and use the planet killing weapons at his first opportunity. There were seven million humans – a sizeable percentage of their surviving race – living there after all. Seven million who were for the most part slaves to the Invid, people they needed to save and they couldn't well do that if Gunther used the neutron missiles to kill every living thing on the planet.

"Something's troubling you isn't it, Rick," a familiar voice said from beside him as a dainty hand touched his arm. Looking over he saw his wife former Admiral Lisa Hayes turned ambassador to the Sentinels Alliance – which allowed her to use her married name of Hunter without causing confusion in the ranks – looking at him in concern. "This test bothers you?"

"It's not the test, Lisa but what it represents," Rick admitted, "I'm not sure we're doing the right thing by allowing these weapons to continue to exist. Do we have the right to wield such terrible weapons and what could our possession of such power ultimately turn us into?"

The context that they could potentially become as bad as – or worse than – some of the alien villains they'd been fighting on and off for the past few decades went unsaid, though Lisa heard it as clearly as though Rick has said it aloud. And she frowned. She could see where Rick was coming from, she really could. Indeed, she'd be lying if she said that she hadn't wrestled with many of the same questions, and come up with no answers, that Rick was currently wrestling with. They both after all came from a time when many had been unease in many parts of the military about the development of reflex weapons and the zero-point energy generated matter-antimatter pair bond annihilations that said weapons exploited to generate blasts far greater than any nuclear bomb ever detonated. Now they were talking about a weapon that could potentially be orders of magnitude more powerful than even those immensely destructive weapons.

"I don't know," she admitted. "But one thing I do know this field test is taking longer than we originally thought it would. We should send a message to the liberation fleet advising how were going to be late."

"T-Minus sixty seconds to neutron-s missile test."

"Good point, we should have finished half hour ago, Communications contact Moon Base Aluce. I want to speak to General Reinhardt immediately," Rick ordered.

"Aye sir," communications acknowledged before carrying out the order to hail Moon Base Aluce on hyper-comm. The distant base answered immediately and a projector field activated allowing a holographic screen to coalesce into existence in front of Rick showing the face and torso of General Gunther Reinhardt with the physically very imposing form of Captain Vince Grant standing in the background.

"This is Command Base One we read you SDF-3," Reinhardt said.

"General it is good to hear your voice," Rick said in greeting.

"Is there a problem, Admiral we were expecting your arrival an hour ago," Reinhardt asked sounding genuinely concerned.

"There's no problem. Doctor Lang noticed that some of the calculations on the neutron-s missiles weren't adding up," Rick explained. "Janice agreed so we're running a field test. Unfortunately, it's taking longer than expected."

Reinhardt nodded in understanding, like Lisa he was aware of Rick's unease about the neutron weapons even though he didn't personally share it. "Should we delay the attack until you arrive," he asked.

Rick frowned and considered that for a few moments. He knew why the other man was asking the question, between the _Pioneer_ and the ships that the Preparatory Council had permanently assigned to escort her he had a considerable amount of firepower tied up in the current missile test. Firepower that was made even more formidable by the fact that – aside from the _Deucalion_ – every one of the twenty-two ships in his battlegroup were carrying full combat loadouts of both space and ground combat mecha as well as entire divisions worth of infantry. A good-sized army was practically tied up aboard his fleet.

It was a significant force to be sure and one that would be of great help against the Invid hoards that had kept their long suffering homeworld from them for more than twenty years now. But after thinking about for a few moments he decided that his ships wouldn't make much difference, certainly not enough of a difference to significantly delay the start of the attack. After all Reinhardt had the SDF-4 _Liberator_ present along with the whole of the First and Second Fleets - giving him a force whose size and firepower would have given even the Zentraedi at the height of their enslavement to the Robotech Masters pause. He easily had enough firepower and manpower to take Earth back from the Regis and her Invid, especially using all the new weapons and technologies that the Haydonites had either provided to them or - like in the case of the synchro cannons - helped them develop.

Besides the test wouldn't take much longer - he could hear on the other channel Janice over on the _Deucalion_ counting down the final thirty seconds to detonation - and once it was completed and all the data collected for full analysis they'd space fold straight to Sol.

"Negative," he said at last "just continue as planned we'll catch up."

On the holographic screen floating in front of him Gunther nodded and started to open his mouth to speak again - presumably to acknowledge the order. But before he could do so a tremendous boom, like a billion bass drums being hit at once, filled the air and the ship shook fiercely as though suddenly gripped by an earthquake. It was all Rick could do not to be thrown out of his command chair as the sudden shaking was so fierce. Alarms went off, filling the air with a desperate emergency clamour, while sparks and smoke shot out of numerous junction boxes around the bridge.

"Rick what's going on there," Vince Grant asked from the holoscreen where he was standing behind Reinhardt. Rick didn't have chance to reply as a second even more violent shockwave tore through the ship, this time pitching him out of the command chair to the hard metal deck. Simultaneously one of the secondary consoles exploded sending bits of hot plastic flying like razorblades. Flames licked up from the damaged console - but only for a moment as fire control nozzles on the ceiling automatically swivelled around and squirted fire retardant at the flames instantly snuffing them out.

Groaning Rick picked himself up off the floor and staggered back to the command chair. A moment before a third violent jolt rocked the ship. A glance showed that unsurprisingly the holographic screen had vanished indicating that long range comms - hyperspatial comms were always a fragile, and sometimes annoyingly buggy, systems - had been temporarily lost. The loss of communication would certainly cause a small panic at Aluce and certainly prompt Reinhardt to dispatch at least one ship to investigate what had happened. And if he knew Vince Grant - and he did as they'd been as close as brothers ever since Vince's elder sister Claudia had died, a pain Rick understood all too well having lost his own adoptive older sibling, Roy in the same war that claimed Claudia's life at the end - then that ship would be the _Icarus_.

Rick put that out of his mind for now. "Report," he ordered "what happened?"

"Sir the neutron-s missile detonated as planned however it triggered an unanticipated spatial shockwave," Lieutenant Pren reported from sensors. "Sir the test planet it's…. It's…"

"It's what lieutenant?" Rick asked, noting out the corner of his eye Lisa helping one of the security marines who guarded the entrance to the bridge who'd had a very nasty cut above one eye.

"The planets gone sir," Pren answered her voice shaking in a combination of shock and horror. "Sensors are now detecting some kind of spatial anomaly forming where the planet used to be."

 _Jesus Christ an entire planet destroyed by one weapon,_ Rick thought both stunned and horrified by the destructive power of the neutron-s missile technology. Stunned because while he'd known that the weapons were powerful and destructive enough to effectively kill a planet he'd never expected they'd be powerful enough to destroy one. Horrified for the exact same reason, especially the knowledge of what they could do to an Earth-sized planet. _We need to get communications with Earth restored,_ Rick thought, _under no circumstances must they use the neutron-s missiles they have with them. Even if it means Earth remains in the hands of the Invid I will not be responsible for our homeworld's destruction. Though what did Pren mean by a spatial anomaly forming where the planet was?_

"Show me," he said after a moment of shocked silence.

"Aye sir."

Immediately a projector field activated and a holographic screen coalesced into existence in front of him showing an image of where the planet they'd used as a target for the weapons test used to be. As Pren had said the planet was gone, almost completely vaporised by the weapons detonation with only a few large asteroids marking where there had once been a planet. Asteroids that weren't moving outwards as he would have expected them to be, instead they were being drawn towards a large orb of bluish-white light where the warhead itself had been sitting just outside the atmosphere. An orb that was pulsing in a very ominous fashion and periodically emitting brilliant lightning like forks into space that as they passed seemed to make the asteroid debris they encountered burn and dissolve. Just looking at it set every mental alarm bell he had ringing.

"Analysis?" he ordered after a moment, while watching an asteroid disappear into the mass which pulsed even more ominously as the mass of rock was absorbed.

"Admiral our sensor feeds from the _Deucalion_ indicate that we're looking at a large gravitational and spatial disturbance of some kind. The lightning-like discharges appear to be comprised of a combination of positrons and antiprotons," Pren reported a moment before her console chirped indicating fresh data. "Sir gravitational fields are spiking."

As the young woman spoke the orb pulsed more violently than ever, sending out more arks of antimatter lightning before suddenly starting to shrink, collapsing in upon itself folding tighter and tighter until it was only a tiny speck of light. A microsecond later it exploded outwards again sending out a rippling wave of energy and gravitational force that had almost reached the ship when it stopped, and began pulling back into a swirling dark whirlpool that now occupied where the energy orb had been. Even as he watched Rick could see the beginnings of an accretion disk forming around the new born black hole.

"Oh, My God," Lisa said aloud summing up what the entire bridge crew were feeling upon seeing what the ultimate consequence of a neutron-s weapon detonation was. These things were not planet killers, no they were far, far worse than that. They were star system killers, adding a whole and frightening new meaning to the term weapon of mass destruction.

After a few seconds, Rick shook off the horrified paralysis that had gripped him upon seeing the singularity form, urgency replacing it as he knew that the fleet couldn't stay here. "Navigation are our space fold generators still online," he asked.

"Yes, sir they are," navigation reported, "all ships are reported that hyperspace fold generators are still online and functioning normally."

"Excellent. Alright all ships are to execute an immediate hyperspace fold jump to Space Station Liberty," Rick ordered a moment before a violent shiver ran through the deck beneath his feet. "What was that?"

"Sir the black hole's gravity field is expanding exponentially," Pren reported after checking her sensors. "At its current rate of expansion, it will start pulling the fleet in within the next twenty minutes."

"Is the gravity field strong enough to affect our space fold yet?"

Pren checked her instruments. "Yes, sir it is," she reported grimly.

"Damn it. Navigation engage the main engines at full power move the ship out of the gravity field, communications instruct all the other ships to do the same."

"Sir I'm afraid that won't work; the gravitational field is expanding too rapidly," Pren said in response. "There is no way we can outrun its expansion on sublight engines, certainly not from our current standing start. Our ships just mass too much, we'd be fighting inertia too long."

"Then we have no choice but to chance it," Rick answered with a sigh knowing from experience that initiating a hyperspace fold within a gravity well - especially one as strong as the one being created by the black hole - wasn't a very good idea as it completely randomised both the hyperspace entry and exit vectors so you were never precisely sure where you were going to come back into normal space. They'd found that out the hard way back on the SDF-1 when a planned space fold from Earth to the dark side of the moon ended up dumping them out by Pluto. And that had just been a space fold inside a planetary gravity well, he hated to think where space folding inside a black hole's gravity well would take them. Unfortunately, they had no other choice but to take the risk. If they stayed here, then their destruction in the black hole was assured - something that was further reinforced by another violent jolt through the deck beneath his feet as another gravitational wave assaulted the ship - only by taking the risk did they stand a chance of survival.

He just hoped the hyperspace fold drives didn't decide to mysteriously go bye-bye on them this time.

"All ships commence fold preparations," he ordered.

"Aye sir."

"Admiral Hunter I have a suggestion," Janice said reminding him that the short range comm channel to the _Deucalion_ was still open.

"Yes Janice?" Rick asked the android as another gravitational wave jolted the ship.

"Admiral while the mass of our ships prevents any of us from having the power to escape the black hole's gravitational influence a probe would not have such difficulty," Janice said. "I propose that before we execute the space fold we launch as many probes as we can, each loaded with a copy of all our data along with a warning about the effect of the neutron-s missiles. Probes that any ship dispatched to find us from either Earth or anywhere in Sentinel Space will be able to retrieve."

"At least that way they'll have a warning about the missiles even if we end up who knows how many light years off course," Rick said thoughtfully. "Proceed with your plan, Janice. Launch the probes as soon as you're ready. We'll space fold immediately afterwards. Navigation relay that to all ships."

"Understood, admiral," Janice acknowledged her voice intermingling with the automatic 'aye sir' from the navigational officer. A moment later another holographic screen came to life showing numerous probes launching from what on a normal Garfish-class light cruiser would have been their VLS missile launchers but which on the _Deucalion_ had been refitted to house long range probes. The probes rocketed away, spreading out as they did so, their engines having just enough power to push them out of the gravity field of the black hole.

"Admiral all ships report hyperspace fold computations completed," navigation reported.

"Execute space fold," Rick ordered as Lisa came up beside him and put a hand on his arm, offering silent support. He looked over at his wife of twenty-two years with a smile and took her hand in his own even as a thrum of power echoed through the ship. Through the viewports at the front of the bridge they could both see the frosted-glass effect of the hyperspace field forming around the ship…

...a moment before all hell broke loose.

* * *

Fold spheres enveloped all twenty-two ships of Rick Hunter's command battlegroup, appearing with the normal ripple of energy followed by an effect like a whirling ball of frosted glass as was the norm for a ship about to enter the multidimensional ether known as hyperspace. Again, as normal the outlines of the ships within the spheres blurred and became defocused as each sphere began to collapse into hyperspace - each seemingly shrinking down to the size of a tennis ball.

It was at this point that something out of the ordinary happened. Instead of shooting off into infinity on a specific vector - an act that would have submerged the spheres fully into hyperspace until they reached their destination - all twenty-two spheres became caught in the increasing gravitational pull of the singularity and shot towards it like bullets fired from a gun. Caught in the gravitational whirlpool the spheres began rotating faster and faster around the singularity, each pass of the tiny black point of infinite gravity exponentially increasing their speed.

For several relativistic minutes – or nearly an hour in normal time – the spheres remained trapped in the gravitational field. Then their speed became too great for the fledgling black holes gravitational grip to be maintained and the spheres shot away from the black hole all along the same vector and all of them vanishing into hyperspace travelling far faster than anyone or anything ever before had through that multi-dimensional space and on a vector, that would take them clear out of the galaxy, across the vast, dark expanse of intergalactic space to another galaxy that hadn't been visited by any race known to Earth in thousands of years.

* * *

 **Haydonite Battleship A-102**

 **Safe Distance from the Black Hole**

In the command room of one of its people's mighty battleships the Haydonite known to Terrans and the other Sentinel races as Ambassador Veidt observed the neutron-s missile test and its consequences with the kind of cold detachment that only a machine race was capable of fully encapsulating. It was mildly disappointed by the outcome as the Awareness had hoped that the SDF-3 – and the protoculture matrix being carried aboard her – would be destroyed in the test of the weapons that they'd originally allowed Colonel Edwards and his Grey Squadron followers to acquire.

Which would have ended the threat of protoculture addicts once and for all as while the Terrans had been kind and helpful ever since their first meeting with them the Awareness had foreseen that that would not last - not while they continued to possess and use protoculture. Sooner or later the incredible power that was contained within the Flower of Life would go to their heads. And then they would begin to suffer from the same imperialistic desires for power and domination that their Tirolian cousins had fallen victim to - leading to the rise of the Robotech Masters and the generations of tyranny that said Masters wrought upon the galaxy - only the Awareness had projected that they'd be worse than the Masters had ever been. For the simple reasons that they were far, far more innovative than anyone save the Invid themselves and had a martial heritage and skill that had let them defeat both the Zentraedi and the Robotech Masters – Masters whose technology had honestly rivalled their own in both power and sheer sophistication. Which would have let them found an empire that would dominate all before it, something that the Awareness had decided that the Haydonites had had quite enough of.

The destruction of the SDF-3 would have ensured that future never came to pass. And the best part of it would have been the Terran leadership would have put it all down to a weapons test gone horribly wrong, if they weren't destroyed themselves either by the Invid or by using the neutron weapons on their own homeworld. But that had not happened.

"Inform the Awareness," Veidt instructed the lesser units manning the control stations that were flush against the walls of the command room.

"As you command ambassador."

"What about the probes launched from the _Deucalion_ ," Vowad, one of his fellow command triumvirate members, asked from another part of the command platform which was built around a holographic emitter. "They certainly contain the sensor records of what happened here. We should destroy them so the Terrans never find out; if they do not know the battlefortress containing the protoculture matrix survives they will not search for it and will - once they run out of protoculture - cease to be any threat to us."

"Agreed. Dispatch fighters to intercept and destroy the probes."

"Ambassador, sensors indicate a Terran warship is unfolding nearby, we read one Shimakaze-class attack cruiser, its transponder identifies it as the _Icarus_ ," one of the other lesser units reported, "Captain Vincent Grant commanding."

"We cannot allow them to interfere with our destruction of the probes," Veidt said. "Dispatch our escort to intercept the _Icarus_. Detain her and prevent her interfering with the completion of our mission or if necessary destroy her, engage with standard weapons only."

"As you command ambassador."

Veidt watched the holographic display as their escorting frigates and cruisers broke off and began to advance upon the _Icarus_. The alien warship showed no sign of being aware of them as their stealth systems, which were several generations more advanced than the systems they'd provided the other Sentinels with, keeping their approach hidden from her sensors. Instead the vessel seemed to be manoeuvring out of the gravitational influence of the black hole, using what per their sensors was a modified fold sphere only using the dimensional shift field of the stealth system instead of her space fold generators to create and maintain the sphere.

 _Ingenious and showing again why the Awareness regards them as a potential threat,_ Veidt thought as he watched the small but powerful warship emerge from the black hole's influence, the sphere around it collapsing as it did so. New information appeared on the holo display informing him that the _Icarus_ had begun thoroughly scanning the area – the pattern of the scans being a clear search pattern. The scans quickly detected the probes and the cruiser instantly changed course moving to intercept the closest one, her intention to recover it perfectly obvious.

Thankfully the first of their escort frigates distracted her unleashing a barrage of anti-ship missiles towards her. The salvo was small and wouldn't tax the cruisers defences to any appreciable degree - but then it wasn't meant to. Instead it was meant to distract which it did admirably as, despite being obviously too startled to launch their lethally fast and nimble defensive missile in time to stop the salvo, the Terrans opened fire on the incoming missiles; their defensive pulse laser batteries throwing out a dense web work of energy flak that even the Invid – the galaxies undisputed masters of swarm tactics – had learned to be cautious around. Instantly missiles began dying, punched into hazy balls of vaporised metal by the bright yellow energy pulses. Only three making it past the initial cordon of defensive fire, another missile died a moment later - another victim of a laser pulse - but the other two slammed into a faintly glowing translucent silver screen of energy that appeared right in their path and instantly disintegrated on contact with the pinpoint defence barrier.

Obviously annoyed now the _Icarus_ fired back at the offending frigate with her main turret. Dual blue beams of relativistic supercharged particles slamming into the frigate with searing force, brutally raking it from stem to stern making its advanced defence screens flare into visibility with the strain. A second salvo of beams impacted the frigate and its shields flickered and died, a barrage of missiles followed ripping open frigates hull and exposing its reactor compartment to another beam hit. With predictable results as the frigate exploded with appalling savagery.

Had he been capable of it Veidt would have scowled as he saw one of his ships be, seemingly effortlessly, destroyed. Though it wasn't surprising, Terran particle beam weapons were incredibly sophisticated and powerful things even by Haydonite standards. As he watched the other frigate and one of the cruisers attempted to avenge their comrade, sending vicious barrages of blood red fission lasers at the _Icarus_. The cruiser intercepted most of the shots with her pinpoint defence barriers, only a handful hitting her hull and not doing much damage beyond creating light shows as the advance alloys of the hull refracted almost all the energy straight back out into space. What remained dispersed over a much wider area of the hull so damage was minimal little more than light carbon scoring.

"Ambassador, sensors indicate that the _Icarus_ has established a tight-beam radio link with one of the probes and is uploading the data," another lesser unit reported.

"Destroy that probe now. We cannot let them take the data."

"It's too late. They have disengaged the signal and are initiating space folding."

"Instruct our ships to switch to disruptors we cannot allow them to escape."

"Too late," Vowad commented as the holo display showed a fold sphere envelop the _Icarus_ and contract before shooting into the distance as the ship vanished into hyperspace - just ahead of a salvo of beams that would have in concert with the ship's dimensional shift field initiated a disruptive wave in the ship's reflex furnace causing the energy loci in the core to become completely desynchronised resulting in first an overload and then energy implosion - which would destroy the ship.

"Well that was not foreseen," Veidt said showing no irritation - or in fact any emotion at all - to the fact that the _Icarus_ had escaped. Emotions were for organics not by nature superior cybernetic creatures like himself. "But it matters not. The Terran forces have already engaged the Regis' forces in combat and will soon be forced to use the neutron weapons. Even at maximum speed the _Icarus_ will not reach the planet in time to warn them."

"We should still inform the Awareness of this development," Vowad counselled. "We should also begin working to precisely identify and track the hyperspace vector of Admiral Hunter's battle group. Just in case the Awareness decides that pursuit is required."

"Agreed though even for us it will be difficult considering the nature of the environment in which they folded and the extreme acceleration imparted by the singularity," Veidt agreed prompting Vowad to nod in agreement, both understood the difficult at the best of times job of tracking a ship through hyperspace would be even more difficult now. Even with their methods as while the Haydonites had the most advanced technology of all the known spacefaring races even they had their limits.

"Difficult or not we will do it if the Awareness asks it of us."

"Agreed."

* * *

 **Author Notes: If anyone is wondering why I reclassified the _Icarus_ as an attack cruiser the reason is the Shimakaze-class ships are, in my opinion, far too lightly armed for their canon battlecruiser designation possessing only four dual pulse laser batteries, thirty anti-ship missile silos, one particle cannon turret and a synchro cannon. Even though I've naturally upgraded their defensive capabilities as I do in all my Robotech fics – seriously what is it with canon Robotech and point and close in defences that are positively anaemic, you'd think that they'd be more extensive like in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica given that in both fighter based combat is a key component of space warfare – the ships are still far too light IMO to be battlecruisers. Hence the re-designation as ships that are basically designed to unleash as much firepower as possible from long range with their missiles and synchro cannon and only having limited capability for combat at conventional range. I hope no one minds.**

 **Finally can anyone guess exactly what the stories title is a reference to.**


	2. Chapter 2

_**A Left Turn at Albuquerque**_

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the characters that I am about to mangle around for my own amusement, sadly all Robotech and Star Wars characters remain the property of Harmony Gold, Disney and Lucasfilm Ltd respectively, I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit whatsoever from their use. So please keep the legal attack dogs, also known as lawyers, firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give to anyone.**

 **Author Edit Note: After some feedback on other sites and careful thought I've rewritten and posted parts of this chapter and added in a scene with the Imperial captain that should hopefully explain why they opened fire.**

* * *

 **Chapter Two**

The star system had no name, just a number and a brief description in the navigational databanks of those who knew of it, it did not deserve one. It was a barren place three rocky planets, that either had no atmosphere or atmospheres so toxic and caustic that not even the hardiest of microorganisms could have survived upon their surfaces, and two very lacklustre gas giants orbiting a main sequence K-type star. Two wide and diffuse asteroid fields completed the ensemble. It was in other words as mediocre a place as it was possible to get anywhere in the galaxy.

Save one factor.

The system was located barely four light years from the junction of several major hyperspace lanes between the Core Worlds and the rest of the Outer Rim territories. As such it had been a major strategic site during the galactic firestorm that had become known as the Clone Wars with both Republican and Separatist forces clashing repeatedly – and often pointlessly – over the control of it during the entire length of that war. As such in a poignant reminder of the brutal – and ultimately futile – conflict the wrecks of dozens of warships from both sides drifted blacked and silent in the eternal stillness of death through the system. Each wreck surrounded by its own micro-nebula and debris field, each composed of the remains of fighters, vented atmosphere and the parts of capital ships.

Into this graveyard came an intruder.

Several degrees above the plane of elliptic space abruptly seemed to shiver with a heat-haze like distortion. A particle of space the size of a quark abruptly warped and distorted, twisting in upon itself and sending out waves of distorted gravity, as the barrier between normal space and hyperspace came under sudden and massive attack from within. With a brilliant flash of light the space-time warp expanded and for a handful of seconds the very fabric of space itself seemed to briefly tear open.

Tiny spheres of energy emerged from the rift, each shooting forward like bullets fired from a gun until a grand total of twenty-two of them had been thrown back into normal space. The spheres came to a stop and for a second floated their sedate before abruptly expanding rapidly growing from objects no bigger than a tennis ball to spheres kilometres in diameter, sending out rippling waves of gravitational distortion as they did so. In microseconds, the spheres were at their full size and in the centre of each a shape began to form, skeletal and indistinct at first but rapidly becoming the completely solid forms of warships. A ripple of blue energy abruptly raced through each sphere in a gyroscope like fashion before the energy spheres vanished, taking the gravitational distortions with them leaving their contents behind.

The SDF-3 and the rest of Admiral Hunter's battlegroup were finally back in normal space.

There arrival had not gone unnoticed. Floating amid the closest cluster of spacecraft wreckage an object shaped vaguely like a mutant mechanical octopus instantly detected both the fleet of ships and the gravitational-spatial distortions that had preceded their arrival. One of dozens deployed throughout the sprawling debris fields – more to watch for anyone attempting to either salvage the more intact wrecks or pilfering the vast arsenals of weaponry still packed in the magazines than concern for disturbing the rest of those who'd died aboard said warships – the Imperial probe droid studied the newcomers with a cold mechanical precision.

The fact that the clear majority of newcomers were warships was not lost on the probe droid. Nor was the fact that the ships did not register in its memory banks of known ship designs – especially which designs it should pay special attention to watching out for. Obeying its contingency programming the probe droid immediately extended its holonet transceiver arrays and broadcast a brief report on the discovery to the nearest Imperial ship or base. As soon as that was complete it retracted the twin antenna and set back to watching the newcomers…

…watching and waiting for the chance to possibly gain more information on them for the Empire.

* * *

 **Bridge**

 **SDF-3 Pioneer**

 **That Same Time**

Admiral Rick Hunter groaned as consciousness returned, bringing with it a dull pervasive ache that made him feel like his whole body had been turned into one giant bruise. With what seemed like glacial slowness his senses began to clear allowing him to hear the wailing of the ships emergency klaxons, the hissing snap of sparks and the faint groans of the bridge crew. He could also smell smoke in the air along with the acrid stench of burned plastics and overheated circuitry.

Groaning again he forced his eyes open. He somehow wasn't surprised to find that he'd been pitched out of the command chair to the deck by the violent convulsions that had gripped the ship. Such things were a normal side effect of having to space fold inside a gravity well, especially one as strong as the fledgling black hole created by the neutron-s missile detonation. _I wonder where we've ended up,_ he thought knowing that the other side effect of space folding inside such a strong gravitational field was the complete randomisation of a ships hyperspace entry – and consequently its emergence – vectors, thus you never knew exactly where you were going to drop back into normal space.

After a moment, he shook himself and climbed back to his feet, swaying as he did so only quickly grabbing onto the side of his command console preventing him falling back down again as a wave of vertigo washed over him bringing with it a dreadful feeling of nausea. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, with the exhalation doing his best to push the feeling away. He repeated the process several times until eventually the nausea and vertigo faded away as his inner ear stabilised and stopped sending distress messages into his brain. Opening his eyes again he looked around at the bridge.

What he beheld was a scene from every captain's nightmares.

The bridge was in semi-darkness filled with a thin but noxious smelling smoke, the legacy of systems that had overloaded and burned out during the incredibly violent fold. The only illumination coming from bluish-white emergency lights, illumination that was harsh and uncomfortable dispersing as it was through the hazy smoke. He ignored that as best he could, consoling his complaining retinas with the fact that he could see that his bridge crew were alive and appeared to be largely unhurt.

And were like him picking themselves up off the deck and getting their wits back. He quickly glanced around, searching for Lisa and was relieved to see that she was also back on her feet. Back on her feet and already back to helping the same wounded marine that she'd been helping earlier as the poor young man had gotten hurled against one of the auxiliary consoles at the back of the bridge when the fold had made the ships AG field go completely berserk, exasperating his already cut forehead.

Which left him free to focus on both the ship and the rest of the fleet.

"Damage report?" he ordered slipping fully into admiral mode.

"Sir main power is down all over the ship, it appears that the reflex furnaces have scrammed. Engineering is already working on them and should have them restarted within another couple of minutes," Lieutenant Richardson reported from the combined engineering/damage control station. "There are electrical fires burning in sections twelve, thirteen and fourteen on decks six, nine and eleven. Fire control crews responding.

"We're detecting minor structural damage along the ships portside it appears that some of the more exposed defensive laser cannons on that side of the ship have been sheared off their mountings," Richardson continued.

"Is the hull intact," Rick asked.

"It is sir the damage is confined to the outer hull the inner pressure hull is undamaged," Richardson answered before continuing with his report. "Our primary sensor arrays both short and long range are inoperative. All port side hanger bays report considerable damage to fighter launching and retrieval systems. All propulsion systems are offline we're dead in the water. All weapons and defensive systems including the shadow device are off line. Repair crews alongside automatic systems are responding but it will be some time before any of the systems are back online."

"Casualties? And what about the fold drives do we still have them?" Rick asked mentally crossing his fingers that a) his crew weren't badly hurt and b) that their fold drives hadn't mysteriously disappeared on them in the way that the SDF-1's had more than thirty years earlier had when they'd space folded inside a strong gravity well. _And thinking of side effects of space folding inside a strong gravity well I wonder where the hell we are,_ he thought, _though until we get our sensors back there will be no way to know. I just hope we're not too far away from home._

"Casualty reports are still coming in sir but so far we have reports of sixty-three major injuries, three hundred and eighty-five minor injuries but no fatalities so far," Richardson reported, "as for the space fold drives engineering reports that we do indeed still possess them but that they are… well somewhat hot."

"How hot?" Rick asked.

"Dangerously hot sir, drive core temperatures are near the red line and the air temperature in the surrounding engineering compartment is over three hundred degrees. Doctor Lang has had to evacuate everyone from that compartment due to the heat. Coolant is flowing into the drives at maximum capacity but they're only slowly cooling down."

"Understood. Are our comm systems still online?"

"Only short range ship-to-ship sir," Robertson reported, "long range communications are still down, the primary hyperspace comm antenna appears to have been physically ripped off its mountings."

"Short range is fine for now. Communications contact the rest of the battlegroup, I want full damage and casualty assessments from all ships as soon as possible," Rick ordered a moment before a faint whirring sound came from deep within the ship, mere seconds before the main overhead lights flickered once then came back on at full power as the ships reflex furnaces restarted. Simultaneously there came the sound of powerful fans kicking in as the ventilation system began to clear the smoke from the bridge and replace it with fresh, clean air.

"Aye sir," the communications officer, who like all the fleets communications officers got the nickname 'Sparks' acknowledged immediately.

"Admiral short range sensors and astral-positioning systems are coming back online," Lieutenant Pren reported. "Attempting to determine our position now. Wait this can't be right."

"What is it lieutenant?" Rick asked.

"Sir the navigational computer is not recognizing any of the star configurations around us."

"So, were lost?"

"It's worse than that sir. Even if the space fold threw us to the far side of the Milky Way, or even into one of the Magellanic Clouds, we would still be able to lock onto a few key astronomical markers. The only reason we wouldn't be able to is..." Pren's voice trailed off.

"Is what lieutenant?"

"Is if we're not anywhere near our own galaxy anymore sir?" Pren answered reluctantly. "But I do not understand how that can be possible as while folding so deep inside the black hole's gravity well will have seriously randomized our hyperspace entry and exit vectors it shouldn't have affected them that badly. Plus, we have travelled way beyond the range of we should have been able to travel in a single fold operation."

Rick scowled slightly at that. He knew that Lieutenant Pren was quite correct as the maximum range of any single hyperspace fold was ten kiloparsecs or thirty-two thousand two hundred and twenty light years. It was one of the seemingly immutable laws that came with hyperspace folding technology that you couldn't travel farther than that in a single fold operation as nobody not even the Robotech Masters – who had arguably been the most technologically advanced and dangerous enemies they'd ever faced – had been able to figure out a means of building a fold system that went further than that in a single jump. So how could they possibly have travelled to another galaxy in a single jump as well intergalactic travel using sequential space folds was theoretically possible nobody known to them had ever done it.

"Are you sure that the navigational computer is working correctly?" he asked.

"Yes, sir it is. As impossible as it seems we've been somehow hurled into another galaxy."

Silence greeted that announcement as everyone on the bridge glancing at one another as they struggled to comprehend just what it was they'd been told. They had all expected to emerge into normal space at random coordinates but they'd expected to still at least be in their own galaxy. Thus, while they'd still be somewhat lost they wouldn't be completely, hopelessly lost in space in the way they were now and would have – eventually – found their way home.

"Pass your findings onto the _Deucalion_ ," Rick ordered after a few moments, breaking the tense, shocked and horrified silence that had descended upon the bridge like an invisible, but all smothering, blanket. "Tell Exedore and the other scientists aboard to begin working to explain a) how we could have possibly gotten here and b) trying to develop a means to get us back home."

"Aye sir."

"Sparks?"

"Sir?"

"Contact the rest of the fleet. I want all commanders to meet me here in an hours' time so we can begin hashing out exactly what we're going to do about this."

"Aye sir."

"Flight ops can we launch any fighters?"

"Only from the starboard bays sir," the flight operations officer answered.

"Understood. Deploy three squadrons to form a CAP around the fleet."

"Aye sir."

As the bridge crew set about carrying out their various tasks that he'd just assigned them Rick sat down in the command chair and leaned forward to kneed his brow. He could feel a headache beginning to beat away inside his skull as the seriousness of the situation fully dawned upon him. How the hell was he to deal with this situation? Until the neutron-s missile test had gone so spectacularly pear shaped his biggest concerns had been a) the frightening power – power he'd obviously been right to be wary of as the neutron-s warheads had been shown to be far more powerful and devastating then he'd ever thought possible – of the new weapon and what its long-term consequences would be. Then b) liberating Earth from the Regis and her Invid hoards hopefully without having to genocide the Invid as at the end of the day everyone be they Terran, Zentraedi, Invid or whatever had all been victims – in various ways but victims nevertheless – of the Robotech Masters evil.

He certainly hadn't expected to be put in the situation he, and everyone under his ultimate command on all twenty-two ships of SDF-3's battlegroup, was in. Perhaps for the first time he began to get an inkling of exactly what Captain Gloval must have felt thirty-five years ago, when the SDF-1 had been flung to just inside Pluto's orbit. He too had had to face the reality that they faced a long and possibly impossible journey home as at that time not a great deal had been known about what dangers – other than the Zentraedi of course – might have awaited them on the long sublight voyage home. It wasn't quite the same though as Gloval had at least had the advantage of knowing where home was, he had absolutely no idea.

A hand touching his shoulder brought him out of his thoughts. He glanced up to see Lisa had come to stand beside him and had put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Her expressive green eyes telling him without needing words that he wasn't alone in his, that she was here for him. He smiled warmly, gratefully back at his wife letting her know how much her support meant to him.

"Admiral short range scans of this system have been completed," Lieutenant Pren reported drawing Rick's attention back to her.

"What have you found?" Rick asked.

"The fleet is currently a few degrees above a large but quite diffuse asteroid field," Pren reported. "Curiously our sensors are indicating a number of large metallic objects, almost certainly spaceships of some sort, drifting admit the rocks and dust. We cannot get precise information on them, there's a lot of interference from the asteroids and dust clouding our screens."

Rick frowned. "Flight ops dispatch a fighter squadron to the closest ship to investigate," he ordered. "And tell them to be careful, if the battle here took place recently then the victors could still be hanging around outside our immediate sensor range."

"Aye sir."

"Do you really think that will happen Rick," Lisa asked her husband.

"Of course, it would. It's the way our luck tends to run."

"Good point."

* * *

 **Razor One**

 **Razor Squadron**

"Roger that command," Lieutenant Commander Leon Bennett acknowledged nodding at the open comm window on the main screen of his powerful and brand spanking new Super Shadow veritech fighter. "We're moving to investigate now."

"Take care Razor Leader," Lieutenant Christina Englewood replied from the bridge of the SDF-3.

Leon raised an eyebrow. "Don't I always Christina," he asked before signing off, cutting the signal before he could get what would certainly be an extremely sarcastic response off the young woman. Before she could override and re-establish contact with him he opened the squadron command frequency. "Razor Leader to Razor Squadron, command wants us to take a quick looksie at a derelict ship," he said, "so activate your data transmitters and follow me."

As a chorus of 'rogers' came over the radio Leon manipulated his controls and brought the veritech around before heading right for the derelict alien vessel floating admit the asteroids that they'd been detailed to investigate. White hot ions burst from his tailpipes as he hit his afterburners causing the veritech to burst into motion like a startled rabbit. He didn't have to look at his screens to know that the other fifteen veritechs of his squadron had matched his manoeuvre and we're now all accelerating towards the target – not that he would have seen anything even if he had looked at the screens as shadow stealth went both ways unfortunately.

After what only seemed like a few seconds – but was really a minute or two – they entered the asteroid field. As regulations – and honestly common sense – demanded he immediately reduced his speed as his sensors screens immediately began to become cluttered with contacts. It was immediately obvious to him that there had to have been one hell of a scrap here as he entered a cloud formed from the ruins of what had to have been some very sleek and sweet looking fighters. Bodies floated admit the debris – all naturally both mummified and frozen by the vacuum of space – bodies that looked very, very human or at least humanoid.

"I wonder who these guys were," he muttered to himself before wincing as a body bounced off his windscreen. Then he was through the cloud of debris and bodies and streaking around an inconveniently placed asteroid before coming to what had to be the very heart of this battle zone as a vaguely wedge-shaped vessel coloured white and red floated dead in space.

The vessel had obviously taken quite a savage beating as even from here he could see multiple large holes blasted into the hull some of which were honestly big enough to fit a battloid through. Rising from the top surface of the ships aft section was a bridge tower that looked like it had literally been blown in half by something tremendously powerful. More bodies along with debris floated around the wreck.

"Bloody hell someone was in a hell of a scrap here," Razor Two said over the radio. "Anyone have any idea who these guys were?"

"Could be Tirolians," Razor Four suggested. "Maybe some group that fled the rise of the Robotech Masters only to meet their ends out here – wherever here is – at someone else's hands. The bodies look to be the right size and proportions to be Tirolian as they're certainly not Zentraedi – they're far too small – and there is no way they can be Terran."

"Possibly," Leon agreed as he checked his sensor readouts. "But something isn't right here, sensors aren't picking up any materials in the debris or anything at all that matches Tirolian technology. Even if these guys weren't using robotechnology we should be getting some positive matches."

"How'd you know that boss?" Razor Two asked.

Leon frowned and was about to remind his absentminded junior officer that his mother was a specialist in Tirolian history and technology, but before he could do some movement admit the debris caught his attention. He looked over and immediately saw a mechanical monstrosity – that honestly looked like something out of a Lovecraftian horror story – appearing from behind the wreck and angling to attack his second who was also his wingman. Before he could open his mouth to shout out a warning the metal beast fired sending a salvo of red energy bolts flying towards his wingman.

It was immediately obvious however that the alien attacker's sensors were affected by the fighter's shadow device as the bolts missed by a mile succeeding only in immolating a few motes of space dust. Not deterred in the slightest the alien – which from its size had to be a drone of some type – fired again and again only to miss by miles as Razor Two took evasive action.

So, did Leon as he locked onto the alien and sent three Hammerhead micro-missiles flying from one of his weapons bays. The alien machine immediately detected the missiles and started taking evasive action while spraying blood red bolts of energy at the incoming projectiles. It did the drone little good as being designed to run down and destroy even the most insanely fast and agile of robotech mecha the missiles matched its manoeuvres while evading its wild weapons fire before slamming home and detonating instantly incinerating the drone with the brilliant whitish-yellow flash characteristic of plasma explosives.

"Razor Two are you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah I'm fine boss that thing – whatever it was – had absolutely lousy aim. Nice shooting by the way," Razor Two answered.

"Thanks," Leon replied before switching channels on his radio. "Razor Leader to SDF-3 come in please. Repeat this is Razor Leader to SDF-3 come in please."

"This is the SDF-3 we read you Razor Leader," Christina's voice responded a microsecond before her image appeared on his comm screen. "What happened Leon? Our sensors just picked up three plasma detonations."

"We had an unfriendly encounter with a local," Leon replied. "Some kind of armed drone opened fire on us before we could do anything more than ran an initial scan of the target ship."

"Was anyone hurt?"

"Negative SDF-3. Its sensors don't seem to be able to penetrate our stealth protection, either that or it was just a totally lousy shot. Request instructions."

"Stand by," Christina replied before looking away and though he could see her lips moving he couldn't hear what she was saying. Then again, he didn't need to as it was perfectly obvious that she was passing along his request for instructions to Admiral Hunter. After a moment, she looked back at him. "Razor Leader you are ordered to return to the ship immediately. We'll investigate the derelict later."

"Roger that SDF-3 returning now," Leon replied before changing channels again. "Razor Leader to Razor Squadron, bad news boys the missions been scrubbed and we're to head back to the ship."

A chorus of groans accompanied the chorus of 'rogers' that came from the rest of his squadron but nobody objected at least not aloud. Leon for his part immediately reversed course and headed back towards the SDF-3 and the rest of the fleet. This time he was careful to skirt around the edges of the plume of fighter debris and bodies as he had no desire to have another dead body bounce off his windshield. While it would take much more than hitting a dead human-sized body to do any real damage to the cockpit windows it was still not a pleasant thing to have happen.

Within minutes he was guiding his Super Shadow out of the asteroid field with the fleet back in sight. _Huh_ _from the looks of things they've got their manoeuvring thrusters back,_ he thought noticing that the fleet was no longer drifting but had re-established its standard cruising formation with the SDF-3 in the centre of the fleet. Here and there he could see the blue flares of ion thrusters as the last of the ships moved back into their normal positions. A few more squadrons of fighters were also now visible indicating that some of the other ships had also deployed squadrons bringing the fleet CAP up to full strength. Though he did note that most of them were standard shadow stealth equipped Alpha or Alpha/Beta combinations as only the SDF-3 yet carried Super Shadow fighters as her standard veritech fighter.

Leon allowed a small smile to tease his lips as he saw that things with the fleet were starting to get back to normal. The smile vanished when out the corner of his eyes he could have sworn he saw something, a flicker of almost pseudo motion a moment before a cruiser-sized ship appeared out of nowhere. As cruisers went it didn't appear to be that large, barely twice that of a Garfish-class scout cruiser and from the look of it was built by the same race who'd built the derelict. It had the same general wedge-shape though much smaller and a greyish white in colouration without any of the red highlights the other ship had its bow also had a slight split in it going back at least twenty metres. The command tower was also smaller and vaguely T-shaped. Four quad cannons appeared to be its only real armament unless the split bow also concealed a weapons system like how the bows of the SDF-3 contained the powerful heavy synchro cannons of the ships main battery.

"Razor Leader to Razor Squadron looks like we've got company boys," he said into the squadron command frequency. "Keep your eyes peeled and your weapons hot," he ordered while flicking a few switches bringing all his weapons systems on line including the fighter-scale synchro cannon whose barrel was literally a few centimetres above and behind his head – separated from him only by the cockpit canopy and about three inches of clear space. He hoped it wasn't necessary but given how everything had gone today – and the fact that they didn't exactly have the best track record when it came to meeting new people – he wasn't about to take any chances.

A precaution that was sadly proven to be justified as with a startling suddenness the unknown ship opened fire sending four bolts of an odd emerald energy towards the SDF-3. Unprotected by her shadow device, as said system was still off line, the bolts ran straight and true slamming into the hull of the mighty battlefortress causing bright white flashes to erupt as almost all the energy was almost immediately refracted straight back out into space. As the flash faded the SDF-3 appeared unharmed as the remaining energy of the blasts was dissipated in a molecule thin layer across a dispersion/ablative strip.

Seemingly undeterred the unknown fired again this time with all four batteries sending sixteen of the emerald green bolts towards his mothership. Again, they didn't appear to do much damage to the battlefortress beyond causing brilliant refraction flashes where the bolts hit the incredibly strong and resilient robotech armour covering her hull.

"Attention all veritechs we are under attack, repeat we are under attack," Christina's voice abruptly blasted across all squadron radio channels. "All veritechs break and attack, disable the targets shields then target engines and weapons only the admiral wants them disabled not destroyed. Repeat all veritechs break and attack, target hostiles engines and weapons only."

"Razor Leader to Razor Squadron," Leon immediately said into the squadron command frequency. "You heard her boys, I'll use my synchro cannon to take out those shields the rest of you target their weapons and engines. Fire just after I do."

A chorus of 'rogers' from his squadron mates came in his ears even as Leon flickered a switch telling the synchro cannon to prime a shot while also looking straight at the hostile vessel and blinking – causing the smart tracking system in his helmet to lock onto the vessel. A moment later a green light appeared on his screen confirming that the cannon was ready to fire and that he was both in range and had a solid weapons lock on the enemy vessel. A vessel that had just sent another volley of fire towards the SDF-3.

"Eat this," he said with a warrior smile before he pulled the joystick trigger sending a coruscating lance of pure destruction streaking towards the enemy ship.

* * *

 **Imperial Cruiser Vigilance**

 **Ten Minutes Earlier**

Captain Gideon Tyrus resisted, just, the impulse to sigh as he stood before the bridge viewports gazing out upon the endless sea of stars. This patrol was turning out to be one long assignment that consisted of just moving from system to system, essentially showing the Imperial flag in those Outer Rim systems that didn't rate a major garrison of ships – unlike Garel or Lothal both of whom had Star Destroyers permanently stationed there – reminding everyone that the Empire was forever watching. It was a routine assignment, exactly the kind of one light cruisers like the _Vigilance_ were designed specifically to carry out.

Unfortunately, it was also turning out to be an extremely boring assignment.

Since beginning their patrol a month ago, they'd encountered nothing no smugglers – even though the Outer Rim was supposedly rife with black market activity – no pirates and no sign of Rebel Alliance activity. The latter was somewhat understandable as it had been barely six months since Grand Admiral Thrawn had dealt the Rebels a major defeat and destroyed their base on Atollon – thus the rebellion was currently and understandably keeping its head down while they licked their wounds – but the lack of either of the former was quite vexing.

"Captain," one of the junior officers abruptly called from the lower level of the bridge. _Now what,_ Gideon thought as he turned in place to look down on the lower level of the cruisers small bridge.

"Yes, what is it?" he asked.

"We've just picked up a weak signal on Imperial frequencies," the other officer answered, "the signal quality is extremely poor and we cannot make out any real details."

"Do we know where its coming from?"

"Yes, sir we do. The signal originates in System M-77677 it's an old Clone Wars battlefield located just off the main hyperspace routes between the Coruscant Sector and the Lothal Sector."

"Hmm could be anything then. Still we should investigate," Gideon said aloud. "Navigation set a course and engage the hyperdrive."

"Yes sir," navigation answered.

"Should we inform command sir?" the junior officer who'd initially spoken asked.

"No this could be anything. For all we know a drifting asteroid could have knocked some old Republic ship and activated its emergency beacon as it wouldn't be the first time that's happened. There's no reason to alert the sector commander until we have something to report."

"Understood sir," the other officer replied even as a whirr of sound echoed through the ship and a thrum of power ran through the deck as the cruiser jumped into hyperspace. Satisfied that the crew wouldn't question him any further Gideon turned back to the viewports which were now filled with the swirling blue tunnel of hyperspace travel.

He didn't get long to enjoy the almost mesmerizing beauty of hyperspace as within minutes the tunnel turned back into star lines that rapidly pulled back into the normal distant points of light. The cruiser was back in normal space and ahead of them was a sight that left him momentarily stunned in shock and disbelief.

A fleet of large and blocky ships, that from their very visible armaments were obviously warships, hung in space a few hundred kilometres above the first of the systems asteroid fields. From his position, Gideon, couldn't tell how many there actually were but his attention was immediately grabbed by three things. First was the seventeen-hundred-meter-long monster that was filling space ahead of them. Second the ship appeared to be unusually dark, with what looked like only its running lights on and with the main thrusters at the back dark and silent. Three the ships were not Imperial, which meant that they either belonged to some particularly well equipped group of pirates – who often modified ships in the oddest of ways – or they were rebels.

"Sensors report," he ordered.

"Sir we read twenty-two individual contacts arrayed around us," one of the few other officers on the bridge reported. "Curiously most of their core systems and all their weapons systems appear to be off line, in fact some of them appear to be operating entirely on emergency power."

"How in the name of the Emperor could twenty-two ships lose core systems all at once," Gideon wondered aloud knowing that should be impossible, not even the largest of ion cannons could disable so many ships at once. "However, it happened it doesn't matter. Whoever they are they're trespassing in a restricted system. Hail their command ship."

"Yes, sir hailing."

For a moment, nothing happened then the trapezoidal screen on one wall of the bridge switched on and washed with static. Gideon turned to look at it in time to see the static resolve into the face and torso of an older but still extremely fit looking human male. He was dressed in a strange white uniform with gold piping and an odd red undershirt. It was a uniform that he was completely unfamiliar with which only confirmed that whoever this man was he was not affiliated with the Empire.

Gideon straightened up as much as he could and spoke with full Imperial authority. "Attention unknown vessel this is the Imperial cruiser _Vigilance_. You have violated restricted space, in the name of his most gracious majesty Emperor Palpatine you are hereby instructed to stand down and prepare to be boarded. Failure to comply with this notice will result in your immediate destruction."

The man on the screen frowned, looked confused as if he didn't understand what he was saying, before speaking himself. Only what emerged from his lips wasn't the familiar sounds of Galactic Basic but were words spoken in a language that Gideon did not understand. He was familiar with both Mandalorian and Huttese – which were the most common other languages for humans to speak and even then, they'd still speak basic as a second language – and this language sounded like neither of those two tongues.

"Speak basic," he demanded. Again, the other man just looked confused before looking off to the side and speaking again in that strange language clearly speaking with someone else on the bridge of his ship.

"I know you can speak basic, every human in the galaxy does, it's pointless pretending that you don't," Gideon answered getting annoyed now with this charade. "Answer me immediately or you will face the full force of this vessels weapons." When no reply was forthcoming he sighed before gesturing for the comm link to be closed.

"Weapons fire a warning shot," he ordered "let's see if that gets their attention."

"Yes sir."

Gideon turned back to look out the viewports in time to see one of his ships quad light turbolaser turrets fire upon the unknown ship sending four bright green bolts of energy toward the mysterious warship and its insolent crew. The four bolts slammed almost instantly into the bow of the ship creating a brilliant white flash that rapidly dissipated… revealing no damage at all beyond a few slight blackened smudges where the bolts had struck the hull.

"Impossible," Gideon breathed his jaw dropping open in shocked amazement. Though they were light turbolaser bolts those blasts should have punched sizeable holes in the vessels armour plating. Yet they hadn't done so. "Fire all batteries," he ordered, "we'll destroy this ship then hail one of the others. They should be willing to answer our questions then."

"Yes sir."

* * *

 **Bridge**

 **SDF-3**

 **A Few Moments Earlier**

To say Rick was startled when the unknown vessel appeared out of hyperspace would have been an understatement. There had been virtually none of the normal warning signs that a ship was about to drop back into normal space certainly there had been no gravitational distortion to indicate that a warp between hyperspace and normal space was forming. All there had been was the alpha and delta wave phase shift literally a second before – with a pseudo motion flicker – the ship just appeared.

"Sensors report," he ordered.

"Unknown vessel appears to be a light cruiser of unknown design," Lieutenant Pren reported. "The hull is composed of titanium mixed with an enhanced steel-like material, it's not going to be anywhere near as strong as our robotech alloy hull and I very much doubt it has the same refractive, dispersive and ablative properties that our armour does. There appears to be an odd energy field over the hull I suspect its some kind of energy shield though I cannot hazard a guess to how strong it is."

"Weapons systems?"

"We read four large quad turrets, weapons type unknown," Pren replied. "We also read two torpedo launchers with twenty torpedoes per launcher – scans confirm proton based warheads."

"Do we have any idea what yield were looking at," Rick demanded knowing how powerful proton based explosives could be. The REF did have some in their arsenal after all though they were quite awkward to use and stow safely as proton-based explosives could be extremely unstable. It was one of the reasons why most modern anti-ship and anti-mecha missiles used plasma explosives in the warheads instead as until armed a plasma explosive was perfectly harmless.

"From these readings, roughly equivalent to a standard anti-ship missile warhead, maybe slightly lower," Pren replied. "It's hard to be certain without physically examining the warheads themselves."

"Admiral we're being hailed by the alien vessel," communications reported. "Audio and visual."

"Put it through," Rick ordered. Immediately a projector field activated and a holographic screen pixeled into existence bringing with it a visual image of the commander of the alien vessel. Someone Rick wasn't surprised to find himself facing what appeared to be another human being. _What is it with aliens looking like us,_ he thought, _first it was the Zentraedi and then the Tirolians. Both subspecies at worst and genetic cousins to us at best. Now which are these guys?_

He carefully studied his opposite number. The commander of the unknown vessel was a young man in his twenties with pale grey eyes and hair cut short in the military style that had been popular on Earth before the Global Civil War really kicked off. He was dressed in a perfectly tailored olive-grey uniform with two sets of odd pen-like objects on either side of the chest. Over his right pec, the young man wore what were obviously a set of rank bars consisting of four red squares above four blue squares. For a moment, nothing more happened and then the other commander spoke, and did so in a language that he didn't quite understand but which sounded vaguely familiar.

"I am sorry I don't understand you," Rick said to his opposite number. "Sparks can you identify that language?"

"Yes, sir it's Tirolian," the communications officer answered, "but according to the computer it's a very, very old form of Tirolian one that has not been spoken aloud in at least ten thousand years. I'm working to extrapolate and develop a translation matrix now. Try to keep him talking it should speed things up."

Rick nodded and opened his mouth to speak to his opposite number again. But before he could do so the other man, looking both frustrated and annoyed, vanished causing the holoscreen to pixel out of existence. _Well that was rude. It's not our fault that he was speaking a – to us – almost forgotten language,_ Rick thought a moment before alarms went off.

"Unknown vessel powering weapons," Pren reported. "We're being targeted."

"Barriers?"

"Still off line sir," Pren replied. "They're firing."

Rick nodded as through the viewports at the front of the bridge he saw a brilliant green flash as the unknown weapons fired. A distant thud, accompanied by a faint rumble – like distant thunder – echoed through the hull and the deck gave only the faintest of shudders as the blasts slammed into the hull. "Report," Rick ordered.

"Unknown weapons appear to be a plasma-laser hybrid sir," Pren reported. "They appear to be laser particles wrapped around a plasma core. Plasma composition unknown. No damage. The bolts are well within the capabilities of our armour to withstand. They're firing again all batteries this time."

No sooner than Pren spoke than another rumble of thunder – this time slightly louder – accompanied a faint but slightly more noticeable shiver in the ships artificial gravity field. "Multiple hits sir. Again, no damage. Another salvo incoming."

"Persistent buggers aren't they," Rick replied as the deck shuddered a little again. "Alright enough is enough. Flight ops order our CAP to engage but have them target the shields, engines and weapons only I want that ship disabled not destroyed."

"Aye sir," Christina answered from flight operations.

Rick turned his attention to the holographic tactical screens floating at his eye level. Screens which currently showed the unknown warship that had opened fire on them, a warship that had just fired yet another salvo of green bolts. _You'd think they'd realise that those plasma-laser bolts aren't powerful enough to really pose a challenge to our latest generation of starship armour plating,_ he thought knowing that their latest forms of robotech armour were designed to resist not just particle beams and lasers but the powerful protoculture-generated plasma weapons of the Invid.

Abruptly a bluish-white beam of energy came from somewhere below the line of the external cameras feeding the holographic display. A beam he'd recognise anywhere as being the discharge of a synchro cannon and – from beams small bore – a fighter based synchro cannon. It slammed hard into the unknown warships ventral shields causing lightning like arcs to momentarily flash all over the hull before vanishing as the energy barrier collapsed allowing the remaining energy of the beam to cause a sizeable explosion where it hit the hull. The beam disappeared only for a salvo of four Derringer anti-ship missiles to slam into the vessels ventral weapons and detonate the multiple plasma detonations not so much shattering the two quad turrets but completely vaporising them and opened two wide, burning, holes in the ship's hull.

What happened next shocked him speechless.

Even before the afterglow of the missile strikes could fade secondary explosions erupted on the other warship, explosions that burst up through the hull blowing off the two dorsal turrets and sending them flying through space. More explosions followed rippling along the entire length of the ship sending debris and the bodies of dead and dying crew members flying into space. The dying vessel immediately lost all attitude control and began to nose down and drift away explosions continuing to erupt as the vessel literally seemed intent on tearing herself apart.

 _All that from just four missiles hitting the hull,_ Rick thought shocked and a little horrified as he beheld the dying ship. Even though her hull was made of far weaker materials than he was used to facing there was no way just four Derringer missiles could have destroyed her so completely, especially as the Derringer was one of the oldest missiles still left in the REF inventory with the first models having made their appearance way back in 2005. Like the Foxfire interceptor they'd only been continued in service because they were simply the perfect weapon as they were, though naturally over the decades the guidance systems had been upgraded and the warheads changed from older high explosives to modern plasma explosives. "Lieutenant Pren report, what the hell happened?" he ordered.

"Sir it appears that the missile detonations set off their main magazines," Lieutenant Pren reported checking her screens. "Whatever fuels those pulsed plasma lasers of theirs is apparently not only extremely volatile but not that well protected. There burning up from the inside out. Sir their reactor is going critical." No sooner than the words left her lips than a brilliant flash filled both the holo-screens and the bridge viewports as the hostile vessel erupted into a massive explosion that seemed to momentarily rip the fabric of space-time apart. When the blast faded all that was left of the vessel was a few fragments spinning away still trailing plasma flames.

"Any survivors," Rick asked.

"Yes, sir we read one escape pod but it's pretty banged up."

"Flight ops have that pod brought aboard. Make sure whoever is in their gets medical attention if they need it before chucking them in the brig for interrogation later. I want to know exactly who they are and why they so readily chose to open fire on us. Then have Razor Squadron land for full debriefing," Rick ordered. "Lieutenant Robertson tell engineering to try and speed up the repairs to our sublight engines as well as to do their best to increase the cooling rate of the fold systems. I would rather us not be here when more hostile ships show up."

"Aye sir," both officers acknowledged.

* * *

 **Imperial Palace**

 **Coruscant**

 **That Same Time**

Emperor Sheev Palpatine allowed himself a small smile as he read the latest report from Director Orson Krennic on the progress with the Death Star. Finally, after so many years of delays and setbacks – more than a few of which had been caused by that rabble who now called themselves the Rebel Alliance blowing up kyber crystal shipments, which had forced a complete redesign of the superlaser systems – the great mobile battle station was nearing completion. From the report, they just had to finish assembling the final pieces of the massive focusing array – that would merge the various kyber generated superlasers into one massive synchronised blast of power that could destroy an entire planet – then install it and a few other minor subsystems and the station would be ready to go.

In the privacy of his private chambers Palpatine chuckled in a soft, evil fashion that would have given anyone who'd been watching a clue to his identity, an identity that very few still living people in the galaxy knew. That he was really the Dark Master of the Sith Darth Sidious and the man who'd pulled off what had to be the greatest coup in galactic history in not only successfully bringing down the Jedi, the ancient and much hated enemies of the Sith, but in transforming the old and ineffectual Galactic Republic into the model of efficiency that was a Sith Empire. An Empire that, once the Death Star was completed and certified fully operational, would soon be his to rule alone as he would at last can disband the Senate and with it the last vestiges of the Republic. With the Death Star, nobody would dare to stand against him any longer, if they did then their home planets would be destroyed.

It was all he could do not to cackle in glee at the prospect.

Abruptly his euphoria turned to unease as what he could only describe as a shiver in the Force caught his attention. _Now what could this be,_ he thought in a combination of surprise and annoyance before he closed his glowing yellow eyes and reached into the Force to investigate. Something was happening, something was changing. _But what is it,_ he thought as he attempted to search for the answer only to find next to nothing. Only one, deeply concerning fact, stood out. This change whatever it was wasn't coming either from the dark or light sides of the Force but from a part of the Force that he very rarely paid any attention to as it was so small as to be normally inconsequential next to the power of the dark side. The distortion was coming from the middle ground of the Force, what the Jedi had referred to as the grey path, and it was setting off waves of change and turmoil in both the light and the dark sides.

Mental alarm bells sounding at full volume, Palpatine attempted to use his gift of foresight to see exactly where this practically unprecedented distortion in the Force was going to lead. Alarmingly he saw nothing, for one of the very few times in his life he could not pierce the veil of time to see where events were going allowing him to mould them onto a path of his own design. All he could see was that something that was both new and powerful, something that had never been present in the galaxy before now, had arrived.

And that it was currently somewhere in the Outer Rim.

Opening his eyes, he frowned in annoyance. He would not stand for this, he could not allow a such a potential wildcard to exist in _his_ _galaxy_. Not now, not when he was so close to achieving incontestable dominion over the galaxy and its trillions of sentients. He reached out and touched a control on the arm of his throne. "Get me Lord Vader, Grand Admiral Thrawn and Grand Moff Tarkin immediately," he ordered.

"Yes, your highness," Mas Amedda answered immediately.


	3. Chapter 3

_**A Left Turn at Albuquerque**_

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the characters that I am about to mangle around for my own amusement, sadly all Robotech and Star Wars characters remain the property of Harmony Gold, Disney and Lucasfilm Ltd respectively, I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit whatsoever from their use. So please keep the legal attack dogs, also known as lawyers, firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give to anyone.**

 **Authors Notes: The muse for this one doesn't want to let me go it seems. Think the plot bunny must be using a Jedi mind trick on me or something to keep me writing this fic.**

 **On another note, it's been pointed out to me by a few people that I was mistaken about the exact nature of turbolaser bolts, as such they will no longer be plasma-laser hybrid weapons but a gas fuelled pulsed particle weapon. Blasters – be they cannons, rifles or pistols – however remain plasma weapons that use a laser pulse to ionize tibana gas into a plasma state which is then expelled towards the target as a powerful – but relatively cool as such things go – bolt of plasma that kills through a combination of intense heat and trauma.**

* * *

 **Chapter Three**

 **Rebel Alliance Headquarters**

 **Yavin Four** , **A Few Moments Earlier**

Sabine Wren had a slight pleased smile on her face as she left the meeting room where she'd been meeting with the Rebel Council. She'd travelled here at the behest of her mother and the leaders of the handful of other clans that had joined Clan Wren in their rebellion against the ruling, Imperial-backed Clan Saxon. The thousand or so systems that were within Mandalorian territory were becoming increasingly polarized, with the Imperial-backed crackdown by Clan Saxon following the death of Gar Saxon alienating more and more clans and sending them flocking towards Clan Wren's banner. Which had prompted more overt interference in Mandalorian affairs from the Empire, which was having the effect of making the civil war raging in Mandalorian space worse.

As such she'd been sent by Countess Ursa Wren to speak with the Rebel leadership to see if she could garner some support of them, both in the Imperial Senate – as a few of the rebellions leadership council still served there – and military support in the form of intelligence, her mother wasn't asking for weapons for the simple reason she understood the rebellion didn't exactly have any to spare right now plus their warrior nature meant that Mandalorians generally never lacked for such things anyway. The Rebel leadership had agreed to provide what support they could spare now, though in return they wanted Mandalorian military assistance against the Empire if Clan Wren won the civil war. Something that they wouldn't really have much trouble with given all the Empire had done to the proud Mandalorian people since they'd turned around and used the weapons that she'd designed against her own people.

Something that to this day she'd never forgiven herself for.

Turning a corner, she found her brother Tristen, Fenn Rau and – to her total lack of surprise – Ezra waiting for her. From the looks of things Tristen and Ezra had been talking, since they'd taken out that Interdictor cruiser together over Atollon Tristen had started to become friends with the young Jedi. And he obviously knew that she and Ezra had some feelings for one another, though neither had said anything openly, as he'd recently started teasing her remorselessly about it.

"So, how did it go?" Tristen asked.

"The Council have agreed to what we want," Sabine answered making her brother and Fenn both smile. "Though it wasn't easy there were quite a few objections to overcome. Some of the Senators seem to be under the impression that they can use the Senate to check the Emperors power. Unlike Senator Mothma and Senator Organa they don't seem to realise that the Senate hasn't had any real power in years."

"Well that's not surprising," Ezra answered, "now I don't know much about galactic politics but I know that most of the Senate would rather believe in its illusions than face the truth of the Emperor."

"Which is?" Tristen asked looking curiously at the young Jedi.

"Isn't it obvious? Emperor Palpatine is a Sith Lord."

"How do you figure that one out?" Fenn Rau asked frowning wondering just how the Jedi had come to that startling conclusion about the Emperor being a Dark Lord of the Sith.

"Think about it for a moment. Who is the chief enforcer of the Empire?"

"Well that's obvious Darth Vader," Tristen answered fighting against the impulse to shiver at the name and the memories of the man. Having been forced to serve Gar Saxon as one of his Imperial Super-Commandoes he'd had the misfortune to see Darth Vader at least at a distance. And that alone had been enough to fill him with fear as the dark armoured cyborg radiated an aura of anger, menace and danger.

"Exactly and he's known to be a Dark Lord of the Sith. To keep control over Vader and keep him subservient then the Emperor would have to be a Sith Lord himself or more likely a Sith Master. Otherwise Vader would have long ago killed him and taken the Imperial throne for himself," Ezra replied causing the three Mandalorians to blink in both surprise and realisation. The logic was indisputable but somehow, they'd never really thought about it before now, like almost everyone in the rebellion they'd just believed Palpatine to be a crooked politician who through clever manipulation and the discrediting or blackmailing of opponents had manoeuvred himself into a position of absolute power. The fact that he had to really be a Sith Lord – and a very powerful one at that if he could keep control of the likes of Darth Vader – made an uncomfortable amount of sense.

"How can you be certain that Vader would have done that?" Tristen asked after a moment.

"Because that's the way of the dark side," Ezra replied with a subconscious shiver as he remembered his own brush with the dark side due to that damned Sith Holocron. Something that had left him warier of both the powers of the dark side and the darkness that he knew he had inside of him. Darkness created by eight years of living and surviving alone on the seats of the Lothalan capital, darkness that he had to keep under control less it turn him into something terrible. "The single overriding goal of any darksider is the pursuit and acquisition of power."

"It makes so much sense," Sabine admitted wondering why she'd never thought about it before now. She'd been around a pair of Jedi – in the form of Kanan and Ezra – for years now and in that time, she'd learned a fair few things about the Force and even more since they'd taught her how to wield the darksaber. "I wonder why I never figured it out before now. I mean with all the encounters with Vader and the Inquisitors that we've had over the last few years."

Ezra shrugged. "I don't think you were meant t…. oh," his voice trailed off and he stumbled slightly as he abruptly sensed a disturbance in the Force, the faint musical tones that he'd heard all his life – and learned to trust even when he hadn't known what the Force was – becoming momentarily distorted and scrambled. It was strange and disorientating and he couldn't help but stumble again and probably would have fallen if Tristen hadn't hurriedly caught him – the taller and bigger Mandalorian grunting slightly as he took Ezra's weight and realised that despite his quite lithe frame Ezra was solidly built.

"Are you alright?" he asked his friend – as odd as it was for he a proud Mandalorian warrior to consider a Jedi, even one who was still a padawan, a friend – in concern. Concern turned to alarm when he saw Ezra's eyes rolling in his head and he looked up to see Sabine looking in alarm, concern and sudden understanding as she twigged exactly what was happening or going to happen momentarily. "What's wrong with him?" he asked his sister hoping her greater experience with Jedi, and Ezra in particular, would enable her to provide an answer.

"He's about to have a vision," Sabine replied as she frowned worriedly as she knew from experience when Ezra reacted like this then the vision was likely to be an extremely powerful one. Ezra didn't hear her instead his eyes rolled fully back in his head and the world faded away as a vision burst across his awareness.

* * *

 _Standing on the landing grid outside the repurposed temple that served as the headquarters of the Rebel Alliance. As he watched squadrons of X-Wing fighters and Y-Wing fighter bombers rose into the air and began streaking towards space…_

… _Suddenly on the surface of a desert planet that he initially assumed to be Tatooine but after a second realised was too cold for Tatooine and the planet only had one sun. Ahead of him a city stood on the top of a mesa and nearby was the fallen statue of a Jedi Knight. Abruptly the light began to fade into the ominous darkness of an eclipse as something moved across the face of the sun…_

… _Suddenly standing in open space as a huge metal sphere appeared out of hyperspace and approached a planet he vaguely recognized as Alderaan. A green beam shooting forth and hitting the planet causing it to explode in a titanic fireball…_

… _Standing over an asteroid field somewhere. Nearby floated a large fleet of strange blocky ships that seemed to resonate with the Force in a way that he'd never encountered before. A single Imperial light cruiser was firing at the largest ship, a vessel even bigger than an Imperial-class Star Destroyer. And not having much luck. The ships themselves were oddly blurred and indistinct, almost like ghost images being seen through a rippling torrent of water…_

 _A beam of some kind came from somewhere nearby that he couldn't see and struck the cruiser instantly destroying its shields and breaching the hull. Four missiles came from the same general location as the beam and impacted the cruiser causing it to be wracked with explosions and begin tumbling away as it lost all attitude control._

 _It violently exploded moments later…_

… _Somewhere in space surrounded by unfamiliar stars. Ahead of him a fleet of ships identical to some of the others, also having that ghost image/rippling water effect, behind them was a large blocky space station which while more solid than the ships still had the odd rippling water effect. Approaching them was a fleet of red and grey cylindrical vessel, approaching aggressively on what was clearly an attack vector…_

… _The first group of the odd ships again, again surrounded by unfamiliar stars, ahead of them was a lifeless planet with a large vaguely pyramidal object in near orbit, it reeked of danger. Abruptly it exploded…_

… _The fleet again but the planet had gone. In its place was now the swirling gravitational maelstrom of a black hole. Strange spheres of energy appeared around the ships and contracted down into tiny specks that seemed to try to shoot into the distance only to become caught in the black hole's gravitational pull. They orbited it for what seemed like an age, each pass exponentially increasing their speed until they shot free…_

… _The red and grey cylindrical ships approaching a_ _combined fleet_ _of Imperial and Rebel ships. Behind them a planet that seemed entirely city. The red and grey ships opened fire with strange red beams that simply seemed to ignore shields, cutting ships apart like paper…_

… _Standing on the green grassy surface of a planet watching as a great bird of energy rose into the sky…_

… _Suddenly on the surface of Tatooine looking at Master Kenobi. Only he was now sitting in a cantina with a blond haired, blue eyed young man in simple white farmers fair but who resonated powerfully in the Force. They were talking to a large Wookiee and a Corellian man in the kind of functional clothing favoured by career spacers…_

… _The blond man now in grey clothing and looking worn and beaten as he clung to the edge of a platform over a great shaft. Darth Vader standing over him holding out a hand as if he was pleading with the other man to grab his hand…_

… _Suddenly on the surface of Lothal but something was wrong. The endless prairie lands, broken only by the odd conical granite outcrops ubiquitous to his homeworld, had been turned into a scorched, blackened desert. Ahead he could see the capital wreathed in flames and explosions, the odd red and grey ships floating in the sky above it, firing red beams that triggered massive explosions…_

… _The blond man again, slightly older and dressed in black lying flat of the floor of a metal room. Arcs of dark blue lightning – that literally reeked of the dark side – tearing all over him making him writhe and scream in agony. Nearby an old figure in black robes stood at the base of steps sending out waves of the lightning from his hands._

 _Abruptly the lightning stopped as the old man jerked, a microsecond before a glowing red lightsabre blade abruptly protruded from his chest. The old man looked over his shoulder, glowing yellow eyes wide in pain and disbelief, to see Vader behind him. "You will not have him Sidious, not like you had me," Vader said before withdrawing his blade a microsecond before the old man exploded into a blaze of wailing dark side energy…_

… _Suddenly seeing an older, worn version of himself fighting alongside Kanan, the blond man, Masters Kenobi and Yoda and, most surprisingly,_ _Darth Vader_ _in the company of men in odd metal armour with wheels on their backs as well as stormtroopers and rebel troopers. Facing them were huge red and black machines of death that were mowing down everything in their path…_

 _A female voice, one ancient, powerful and wise beyond his understanding, spoke. "Your fate and the fate of the galaxy you know is now tied to the fate of the Children of Earth," she said. "But be warned, the Children of the Shadow will soon follow them and bring with them the evils of a twisted legacy."_

" _Children of Earth? Children of the Shadow? Who are they?" he asked. "And who are you?"_

" _Who I am is not important young Jedi," the female voice said. "But know this the Children of the Shadow are the creations of the fallen Celestial, they are committed to destroying both protoculture and the psionic domain you know as the Force and all who use both. They will draw no distinction between those who follow the paths of Bogan or Ashla or even those who dwell in the middle."_

" _And the Children of Earth?"_

" _They are the origin, the future and the past," the voice answered cryptically._

" _I don't understand."_

" _You will in time young Jedi. Now go the fate of your galaxy lies with you and those who can be your allies."_

 _Bright light flashed and he felt himself drift away._

* * *

Ezra awoke with a gasp and found himself laid out flat on the cold stone floor of the corridor. Sabine, Tristen and Fenn Rau, all three-looking concerned, while a young Miralian woman wearing a doctor's uniform ran a scanner over him. A doctor who immediately realised that he was awake.

"Please remain still commander," she said as she continued to scan him. "I'm just trying to determine why you suddenly collapsed."

"I'm fine," Ezra replied.

"People who are fine don't just collapse sir," the young woman replied as she finished her scan and frowned at the result. "Well apparently, you are fine there is nothing her to indicate a reason for your collapse. You should come to the infirmary with me so I can check you in more detail."

"You won't find anything as there's nothing wrong with me," Ezra answered. "Well aside from a slight headache but that's normal when your senses get suddenly hijacked by the Force."

"You should still…" the doctor started to say only to be cut off by a new voice.

"He's fine doctor," Hera said as she appeared on the scene. "It is good that you responded so quickly but Ezra's fine. You can go back to the base infirmary."

"As you wish general."

With an obvious reluctance, the Miralian doctor packed up her equipment and left the corridor. As she left Ezra carefully got back to his feet. "Thanks for that, Hera," he said.

"Your welcome. Though I better do something before you decided to do something drastic, like Jedi mind tricking her into leaving you alone."

"Would I do that?" Ezra asked innocently, a little too innocently as he'd honestly been starting to entertain the idea of doing just that.

"Yes," Hera and Sabine said in unison drawing a laugh out of Tristen and making Fenn Rau smile slightly showing the Mandalorian Protectors own amusement.

"You know me too well," Ezra muttered. "How'd that doctor know I'd collapsed?"

"That would be my fault," Tristen admitted blushing slightly embarrassed. "I ugh called her when you collapsed on us."

"I told you it wouldn't be necessary," Sabine said to her brother with a slight smirk amused at seeing the normally quite confident and composed Tristen floundering about.

"Yeah well you've got more experience with Jedi than me."

"Okay you two enough," Hera asked breaking up the bickering session between the Wren siblings before it escalate any further then turning her full attention back to Ezra. "Ezra Chopper comm'd me from the _Ghost_ to tell me that Kanan nearly fell down the ladder to the cargo bay, would have if Rex hadn't caught him. That's when I came to find you. Do you know what happened?"

"A great disturbance in the Force," Ezra answered while massaging the back of his neck in the gesture that to those who knew him well indicated that the young Jedi was both confused and concerned by what he'd sensed. "I don't know if Kanan did but…"

"…it caused you to have a vision," Hera finished guessing what he was going to say, a nod was all the confirmation she needed that that is exactly what had happened. "What did you see?"

Ezra grimaced. "I can't be sure yet. The vision was fragmentary, just flashes of different things and out of order. I really need to meditate on it for a while but if I'm right, then something is coming, something so terrible that the Empire and the Sith will be the very least of the galaxies problems," he said. Hera exchanged a surprised look with Sabine as Ezra voluntarily said that he needed to go and meditate. Normally Kanan had to really get on his headstrong padawans case about meditating, the fact that he was voluntarily saying about meditating meant he was seriously disturbed by what the Force had shown him.

"Alright go on then," Hera said.

"Thanks Hera. I'll see you later Sabine, Tristen," Ezra answered then slowly walked away.

Sabine waited until she was sure he was out of earshot before speaking. "Okay now I'm worried," she said frowning, "whatever Ezra saw must have really thrown him for him to voluntarily want to meditate on it."

"I'll say," Hera agreed looking in the direction the younger of the two Jedi on her crew had disappeared with a concerned frown on her face.

"Why do you say that?" Tristen asked curious.

"Ezra's not one to meditate if he doesn't have to," Sabine explained, "usually Kanan has to really push him to get him to agree to meditate as if was up to Ezra he'd either practice his lightsabre forms all day, practice with his other Force powers or go to gunnery practice with Rex. The fact that he's voluntarily going off to meditate means that whatever he saw it's really worried and confused him."

Tristen frowned. "I don't like the sound of that," he commented.

"Neither do I," Hera answered frowning as she gazed worriedly after the retreating padawan. "Neither do I."

* * *

It didn't take Ezra long to make his way to the chamber in the old temple that he and Kanan had claimed as their favourite meditation spot. It was a small room whose only furniture consisted of only two small circular platforms about a foot tall on which sat comfortable foam cushions. He immediately made his way over to the right-hand platform and assumed the Jedi meditation position on top of it.

Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, using the motion to clear his mind and thoughts to relax into the Force. Instantly the familiar warmth and musical tones – at least to him as according to Kanan everyone's minds perceived the quasi-mystical energy field slightly differently – of the Force filled him. For a moment, he just let himself relax and luxuriate in just the feeling of being connected to the Force and its enduringly beautiful symphony of life before, somewhat reluctantly, focusing on what had brought him here to meditate. The strange distortion in the Force and the rapid fire and fragmentary stream of visions it had seemingly triggered.

After a few moments, he felt the environment around him change. Opening his eyes, he found himself in a familiar starry void, a place he had been in twice before both times while visiting the ancient Jedi Temple on Lothal. This place had been where he'd been put through two important tests the first time had been when he'd gotten the kyber crystal for his first lightsabre and the second time when Master Yoda had told him to go to Malachor.

"A long time it has been since spoke last, we did padawan," Master Yoda's voice said a moment before the ancient Jedi Master and the last Grand Master of the Jedi appeared. As before he was dressed in simple grey robes and was sitting on a log. Though he noticed that the old master seemed more worn than the last time. "Learned much you have since then."

"Yes Master," Ezra replied.

"Know why you are here now I do. A question you have hmm?"

"Yes, Master do you know what caused the distortion in the Force?" he asked.

"Know exactly I do not," Yoda answered and from the frown on his face he could tell that the ancient Jedi Master was just as confused by the cause of the distortion in the Force as he was. "Know however that a time of great change has come upon us I do. New factors at play there are. In even greater flux now the future is."

"Huh guess that explains why the vision I had after the distortion struck was even more fragmentary and incomplete than normal."

"Yes, tides of fate changing are," Yoda explained. "Great opportunities and great dangers the galaxy now faces. Far worse than the Sith this danger could be. Time to return I sense."

"Master?"

"Come to Dagobah you and Kanan must," Yoda told him. "Awaiting you I will be. Return with you to Yavin I will."

"I understand, Master. We will come as soon as possible."

Yoda didn't reply instead he merely smiled and nodded before vanishing leaving him alone in the starry void. Somehow knowing he would not get anything more out of the Force Ezra closed his eyes and started to bring himself out of the meditative trance that he knew he'd descended into. He felt the starry void disappear and suddenly he was back in the small meditation room in the repurposed temple. Slowly he opened his eyes even as slight cramps in his legs and back communicated, quite painfully, that he'd been meditating for a lot longer than he would have thought.

"Did your meditations reveal anything Ezra," a voice that was as familiar as his own asked from beside him. He glanced over to see Kanan sitting beside him, in the usual meditation posture, glazed teal eyes locked onto him giving the impression that Kanan was considering his soul even though he knew those eyes were blind. Something he still, at least partially, blamed himself for as if he hadn't been so willing to trust Maul on Malachor then maybe his master would still have the use of his eyes.

"I saw Master Yoda," Ezra answered. "He communed with me through the Force."

"And," Kanan asked with a raised eyebrow.

"He told me two things one that a time of great change has come upon the galaxy one that can be a great opportunity and a great threat at the same time. And you're not going to believe the other thing that he told me."

"Well don't keep me in suspense what did Master Yoda say?"

"He wants us to take a ship to Dagobah, where he will be waiting to come back here to Yavin with us," Ezra replied and almost laughed when Kanan's sightless eyes widened, through their bond he could sense his master's emotions as surprise gave way to amazement that the Grand Master had apparently decided to end his nearly nineteen-year exile. Surprise and amazement that in seconds gave way to concern as Kanan began to grasp the true potential seriousness of the situation facing them and what that distortion in the Force – and the visions it had subjected his apprentice to – could mean both for them personally, for the growing rebellion against the Empire and the whole of the galaxy in general.

"We need to speak to Mon Mothma," Kanan said even as he retrieved and slipped on his mask before standing up. "Then arrange for a suitable ship as Dagobah is halfway across the galaxy from here. Though knowing Hera she'll insist on taking us aboard the _Ghost_."

"No doubt," Ezra agreed as he too stood up, releasing the pain of the ongoing muscle cramps into the Force in the way Kanan had taught him to. While she maybe increasingly acting like a general, specifically the general in charge of the rebellions growing star fighter corps, when it came to the members of the _Ghost_ crew she was the same protective matronly person that she'd always been.

"Mon Mothma should be in the command room now," Kanan commented as he led the way out of the room. "I believe she was going to be meeting with Hera, General Draven and Admiral Raddus. We should try there first."

"Yes Master."

* * *

 **Starboard Hanger Bay 4**

 **SDF-3 Pioneer**

 **That Same Time**

Clad in a protective suit of CVR-4 body armour Colonel Angelo Dante led a similarly clad squad of security personnel into hanger bay four just as a lift brought the solo escape pod from the ship that had attacked them down into the bay from the landing deck above. Two veritech fighters in battloid mode stood on either side of it, their EP-13 80mm pulsed particle gunpods and head lasers trained on it though there was now no means for the pod to escape.

"You and you keep us covered," he ordered to two of his men, "the rest of you come with me."

Without waiting for a response, he jogged forward keeping his pistol mode Gallant at the ready. Just in case though the occupants of the pod, whoever they were, would have been beyond foolish to try anything under the guns of two battloids. The sound of armoured boots on the deck let him know that the squad he'd assembled, in his capacity as the recently appointed chief of security for the SDF-3 replacing Nova Satori who'd been promoted to security chief on Space Station Liberty just weeks earlier, were following him.

In seconds, they'd surrounded the pod. "Alright we've got you surrounded come on out of there," he ordered to whoever was inside. He wasn't surprised when there was no response from whoever was in their as whoever they were they might not understand English. Though it was possible that whoever was in the pod was hurt and unable to respond even if they did understand what he was saying, which was a very real possibility he knew given the explosive death of their ship.

He looked up at the towering form of one of the battloids. "Open it up," he ordered knowing the pilot inside the armoured cowling of the battloids chest would hear him due to the battloids external audio pickups. The giant techno-knight nodded in response, slung up the gunpod like it was a giant rifle – which it kind of was in both guardian and battloid configuration – before squatting down. Then with a both a fluidness and gentleness, that to someone not familiar with robotechnology would have seemed impossible, the hidden pilot reached out an enormous mechanical hand and pulled off the glass-like material that made up the front of the pod.

As soon as the battloid stood back up Angelo gestured for one of his men to follow him, then he started towards the pod cautiously. It was just as well as he was just about to look in when a bolt of some red energy came shooting out from inside the pod. It missed him by miles and hit the deck causing a momentary puff of smoke to erupt but beyond that did no harm. More bolts of the red energy followed, seemingly coming from two separate sources within the pod.

"Stand down now," Angelo yelled into the pod as the bolts of energy continued to spew from the pod. "This is your only warning stand down now or we will return fire." No response came aside from another salvo of the red blasts, this time one of his men was hit in the torso. There was a brilliant flash and a surprised grunt as the man was thrown onto his back.

"You okay," Angelo asked as the man awkwardly got back to his feet. A deep blackened scar on his chest showed where the blast had pieced the outermost band of the layered carbon nanotube/titanium nanofiber/plasticised ceramic materials used in the creation of CVR armour. The other man put up a thump to indicate he was okay, though a wince on his face told Angelo that the other man had at very least a very nasty bruise from the sheer kinetic force of the blast. Which had to be immense considering it had knocked a hundred and eighty-pound man on his ass.

Before he could smile in relief more of the red energy blasts came from inside the pod.

"Alright that does it," Angelo growled under his breath as he took a shock grenade – the modern descendant of pre-robotech stun grenades – from his belt, armed it and tossed it with impeccable aim into the pod. A microsecond later their came a brilliant flash of light and high-frequency sound from inside the pod.

No more weapons fire came from within the pod.

Angelo made a hand gestured and with two men behind him, Gallants out and ready, all three of them went inside the pod. To see two white armoured individuals sprawled out on the floor unconscious, the light and high frequency sound having overloaded their nervous systems causing temporary unconsciousness exactly as it was meant to do. Two rifle like weapons lay on the floor where they'd been dropped when the grenade detonated.

"Take them straight to the brig," he ordered. "And make sure you strip them of their armour first."

"Yes sir," the two security marines behind him acknowledged.

Leaving his two subordinates to their task Angelo turned and walked out of the pod. He immediately went over to the marine who'd been hit. "Are you sure you're alright?" he asked.

"Aside from feeling like a full-sized Zentraedi used me as a football I'm fine sir," the marine answered. "Whatever those guns are they pack quite a wallop."

"Still better not take any chances get over to the closest sickbay and let the medics check you out."

The marine started to open his mouth to protest but one look at Angelo's face convinced him otherwise. "Yes sir," he acknowledged reluctantly before turning and walking away. Angelo watched him go for a few moments, making sure he left the hanger bay. He made a mental note to check up on the younger man later, just to be certain he wasn't hurt.

Then he took out his communicator to inform the bridge of their prisoners.

* * *

 **Author Notes: Well another chapter bites the dust. I hope everyone likes my little butterfly of the distortion in the Force caused by the appearance of the REF ships, or rather the protoculture aboard them, in the Corusca galaxy and what it could mean for the future causing Yoda to decide to come out of his self-imposed exile on Dagobah. I did consider using Obi-Wan instead of Yoda but it occurred to me that Obi-Wan would not want to leave Luke on Tatooine – not unless he could bring everyone's favourite blue-eyed, blond hair farm boy with him at least – for any real length of time, especially as the dialogue between Obi-Wan and Maul as the latter lay dying in the Jedi Masters arms at the end of Twin Suns indicates that he now believes that it is Luke and not Anakin is the Chosen One. Plus, aside from their brief encounter in Twin Suns Ezra has no real connection with Obi-Wan while he does with Yoda having first heard him then actually seen – and in both cases interacted with him – him in the temple on Lothal.**

 **I also hoped you all liked the little foreshadowing of where things could go later in the fic, especially when the Haydonites show up as they will eventually.**

 **Finally, I should say that I was originally going to have Captain Tyrus be the one in the escape pod and not a pair of stormtroopers. However, the more I thought about it the less likely to me it seemed that anyone who wasn't near the escape pods at the time the _Vigilance_ was destroyed would have escaped. Certainly, the bridge crew wouldn't have had time between the detonation of the main tibana gas magazine and the loss of hypermatter containment in the main reactor to leave the bridge, reach the pods and escape. However, a pair of stormtroopers who were patrolling near the escape pods as part of their regular battle stations drill certainly would be able to escape.**


	4. Chapter 4

_**A Left Turn at Albuquerque**_

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the characters that I am about to mangle around for my own amusement, sadly all canon Robotech and Star Wars characters remain the property of Harmony Gold, Disney and Lucasfilm Ltd respectively, I am merely borrowing them and make no profit from their use. So please keep the legal attack dogs, also known as lawyers, firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give to anyone.**

 **Author Note: The events of this chapter begin just a couple of minutes after the end of the last chapter so don't expect a meeting between the REF and the Rebels in this chapter. That's not going to happen for quite some time to be honest as the REF still must find out about the Empire, that said Empire is evil and that there is a small but growing rebellion against Imperial tyranny. A few other things also must happen before they can think about getting involved, even covertly with the rebellion.**

* * *

 **Chapter Four**

 **Rebel Alliance Headquarters**

 **Yavin Four**

Senator Mon Mothma stared in utterly dumbfounded shock at the two Jedi standing across the table from her. Besides her Admiral Raddus, General Draven and even General Syndulla were equally as shocked by the information that had just been imparted to them by the rebellions resident master-padawan pair. She could not recall the last time that she had been this surprised by anything, not even the outbreak of the Clone Wars had shocked her this much.

"Master Yoda is still alive," she repeated finally finding her voice. Of all the things Kanan and Ezra could have told her she had never expected to be told that a) the last Grand Master of the Jedi Order had survived the terrible galaxy-wide slaughter that was Order 66 and b) that he had chosen to come out of his nineteen years of exile on some obscure planet to offer his wisdom and guidance – gained over his centuries of life and his deep connection to the Force – to the rebellion. Something that would be extremely welcome as despite the Emperor's best efforts to stamp out all records of the Jedi knowledge of the ancient master's wisdom and deeds still reverberated strongly in the consciousness of many galactic citizens.

"Yes," Kanan confirmed, though his face was composed he was inwardly amused to see – so to speak as while he was blind he could still see after a fashion through the Force – the normally confident and composed leader of the rebellion so utterly shocked. Through their bond he could sense Ezra's own quiet amusement over the situation, especially over the fact that Hera seemed as gobsmacked as everyone else to learn that Master Yoda was still alive. He inwardly winced as he realised that he'd never told Hera about Yoda being alive, just that whenever they'd visited the old Jedi Temple on Lothal – well before its destruction at the hands of the Inquisitors Seventh Sister and Fifth Brother – a Force spirit had aided them. Which was true, well from a certain point of view at least, as Master Yoda had never been physically present only heard or seen in visions and the same kind of telepathic communication he and Ezra often did with one another when the use of commlinks was out for one reason or another.

"And he wants to help us," Mon Mothma asked seeking clarification.

"Yes," Kanan answered again patiently as he guessed that this news was hard for the Mon Mothma to process given she was likely under the impression that most, if not all the Jedi Masters, had, like Master Billaba, died during the one night of chaos and bloodshed that was Order 66.

"While I agree that Master Yoda being alive is momentous and most welcome news I must ask why now," General Draven said. He was even more shocked than Mon Mothma by the revelation that Yoda still lived as he'd even got the slightest hint from anywhere that gnome-like Jedi Master had survived. "Why does Master Yoda want to help us now after hiding for nineteen years? And incidentally where has he been hiding?"

"There has been a disturbance in the Force," Kanan explained. "A great change is coming, whether it is for good or ill cannot be truly determined just yet. But it is this change that has prompted the Grand Master to end his exile on Dagobah and offer his assistance to the rebellion."

"An offer we will accept," Mon Mothma answered knowing the rebellion could always use more Jedi.

"Dagobah is nearly halfway around the outer rim from here," Draven pointed out, "getting there undetected by the Empire will not be easy, especially given the increase in patrols by lighter Imperial forces following the recent introduction of the Raider-class corvette."

"The _Ghost_ can easily make the journey without being detected by the Empire _,_ " Hera pointed out.

"I will feel more comfortable sending a different ship," Draven answered. "No offense General Syndulla but the _Ghost_ is quite well known as a Rebel craft in Imperial circles and has a sizeable bounty on it. Flying such a well-known rebel craft so far through Imperial controlled space might be too big a risk to take on a mission as crucial and sensitive as retrieving Master Yoda. Especially now that the Empire knows your ship is able to mask its signature."

Hera frowned and started to open her mouth to object but before she could speak Mon Mothma held up a hand to silence her. "What would you suggest, General?" she asked, shooting the now annoyed Twi'lek an apologetic look.

"I suggest that we send one of our U-Wing transports on the mission," Draven answered inwardly hoping that Mon Mothma would agree to it as then he could send a pilot who'd ensure the mission would be completed promptly and expertly – by someone specifically trained for such covert missions. Someone like Captain Andor, though he would no doubt be ordered to allow one or both Jedi to accompany the captain on the mission.

"While a good idea in principal I think I should remind you Draven that a U-Wing doesn't have the fuel capacity to reach Dagobah from here and return in one go," Hera reminded him though she was also aware the Draven had ulterior motives for his suggestion. "The _Ghost_ does. If a U-Wing was sent it would have to stop somewhere for refuelling increasing the risk of detection by the Empire."

"Which would present too much of a risk of the Empire learning Master Yoda is still alive," Kanan added. "And if that happened then you can bet that Darth Vader and half the Imperial fleet would be after the ship faster than you can say karabast."

"Point," Draven admitted reluctantly acknowledging that both General Syndulla and Knight Jarrus had good points. Especially about Vader as the mysterious dark warrior – who they knew from the reports of their resident Jedi to be a Sith Lord – that was the Emperor's chief enforcer would indeed come running – and bring a fleet of Star Destroyers and the elite 501st Legion with him – if he learned that the Jedi Grand Master was still alive and moving to join up with the rebellion. "Still taking the _Ghost_ is a dangerous risk."

"Most things with the rebellion are a risk," Hera reminded him. "Until intelligence can get its hands on some ships with longer legs than U-Wings the _Ghost_ is the best ship we have for such a mission." _Not that I would let anyone other than myself and my ship take Kanan and Ezra to Dagobah,_ she thought inwardly smiling at the scowl that appeared on the former Republic Intelligence – later Imperial Intelligence – operatives face as he knew she was right. Both turned to the former senator from Chandrila for a decision.

"Take the _Ghost_ ," Mon Mothma said after thinking about it for a few moments. "When can you be ready to leave?"

"We're ready now," Hera answered knowing that aside from Kanan, Ezra and Sabine – the two Jedi because they were in the room with them and the Mandalorian explosive expert/artist because she'd soon be returning to Krownest with her brother - the rest of her crew would already be aboard the _Ghost_.

"Then the three of you may go," Mon Mothma said in clear dismissal. "Good luck on your mission general and may the Force be with you."

"Always," Kanan and Ezra said in unison in the normal response a Jedi would give to that statement whereas Hera just nodded politely back. Then the three of them turned and left the room heading right for the _Ghost._

* * *

 **Ghost**

 **Fifteen Minutes Later**

"So why are we going to Dagobah? From the navigational chart description its nothing but an uninhabited, uncharted mudball."

Zeb's question hung pregnant in the air of the cockpit of the heavily modified VCX-100 light freighter that the Lasat had long called home. Next to him Rex, who was filling in for Sabine while she was away in Mandalorian space, looked as interested to know the answer as Zeb. Especially as it hadn't escaped the old clone troopers notice that neither Kanan nor Ezra had been surprised by the knowledge of their destination. Which, given his long association and experience with Jedi, meant to him at least that it was probably them who'd said they had to go to Dagobah to Hera and the rest of the rebellion leadership in the first place.

Of course, that didn't answer the question as to why they were going there.

From her position in the pilot's seat Hera sighed. She'd known that sooner or later either Zeb or Rex would ask why it was they were going halfway across the galaxy to a supposedly uninhabited mudball of a planet – uninhabited if you didn't count it as being the hiding place of the Jedi Grand Master. She was just glad that the former honour guard had refrained from asking until they were in hyperspace.

"We're going to pick up someone from there," Hera replied.

"Who?" Zeb asked wondering who they could possibly be picking up from a planet that was not only located in the rear end of nowhere but which – according to reports – almost entirely swamp.

"Kanan," Hera said looking over at the co-pilot's seat inviting the older of the two Jedi on the crew to explain. Kanan sighed. Though he couldn't see her he didn't need to to know that Hera was somewhat mad at him for not telling her sooner that Master Yoda still lived. No doubt he'd get an earful about that later at least till he explained that a) he hadn't known where Master Yoda was until Ezra told him and b) wouldn't have told any non-Jedi or non-Force user that the Grand Master still lived without Yoda's express permission first.

"We're going there to pick up Grand Master Yoda," he answered drawing shocked gasps out of both the Lasat and the clone. Even Chopper whirred and warbled in surprise to learn that not only was Yoda alive but that they were going to Dagobah to pick him up.

"General Yoda is still alive," Rex repeated shocked and amazed by the revelation. "But…but how I heard he was killed attempting to kill the Emperor just after Order 66." Though if he was honest with himself he'd always taken the news that Yoda had been killed with a pinch of salt especially as it came from Commander Fox and the Coruscant Guards – who hadn't been that well-liked by the rest of the clone army given their elitist attitude. And he personally had never forgiven Fox for how he and his men had first chased Ahsoka during the temple bombing mess and how they'd cold bloodedly shot Fives dead before the other clone could warn them all about the biochips that had made it impossible for any of his brothers to disobey Order 66 no matter how much most if not all of them had wanted to. Hell, he would have suffered the same fate at the others if Kix hadn't investigated himself afterwards and found out the truth, told him and took out his chip, before vanishing without a trace. Presumably kidnapped and killed so he wouldn't be able to inform both the Jedi Council and the Republic Senate of his findings.

"I don't know the details," Kanan admitted. "But it was just meant to appear that way to the Emperor as neither he nor Vader would have ever stopped looking for Master Yoda if they'd known he still lived. I didn't even know myself that Master Yoda was alive for sure until a few years ago, when I first heard his voice on Lothal four years ago I honestly thought he was a Force Ghost.

"Apparently he has been living in exile on Dagobah for the last nineteen years. Just like Master Kenobi has been hiding on Tatooine," Kanan continued.

"So, why's he decided to come out of exile now," Rex wondered aloud before mentally putting two and two together. "Does it have something to do with the distortion in the Force that knocked you and Ezra senseless?"

"That's part of it," Ezra answered. "But something else is happening, something is coming that could potentially be far worse for the peoples of this galaxy than the Sith and the Empire. But hand in hand with that is something that presents us with the potential for a great change for good as well. It's to help us all navigate this that has prompted Master Yoda to return from exile."

Hera frowned. "I'm not sure I like the sound of that," she commented. "You saw this in your vision I take it?"

"Among other things," Ezra replied rubbing the back of his neck again. "As I said earlier the vision was fragmentary and out of order. Though there was something odd at the end of it."

"What do you mean Ezra," Kanan asked turning slightly in place as if to look at his padawan even though everyone present was fully aware of the fact that he was blind.

"There was a voice," Ezra answered frowning as he remembered, "female, ancient, wise and powerful beyond anything I've ever felt in the Force before. I don't know who she was but she knew me or at she knew what I was. She called me a Jedi."

"What else did she say," Kanan questioned with a frown that was both puzzled and concerned. A sentiment that was shared by everyone else in the cockpit.

"She said that our fate is now tied to the fate of the Children of Earth," Ezra answered, "but to be warned that the Children of the Shadow will soon follow them and bring with them the evils of a twisted legacy. She also told me that these Children of the Shadow want to destroy not just those who use something called protoculture but all who can touch the Force regardless of if they're lightsiders like us, darksiders like the Sith or like the Bendu walk the middle path."

"Did she say anything else about these Children of the Shadow and Children of Earth?"

"The former she said they're the creations of the fallen Celestial, whatever that means. The latter though she said something really cryptic."

"Which was," Hera asked just beating Kanan to the punch.

"That they are the origin, the future and the past."

"Can you recall anything else," Kanan asked.

"Not really though, and I am just guessing here, I think that Master Yoda may have had the exact or nearly exactly the same vision as what I had. I don't know how that's possible."

"Master Yoda did have the strongest gift of prescience in the Order so it's fully possible that he did," Kanan answered. "It was one of the reasons why repeated Supreme Chancellors in the Republic often sought his counsel on any number of issues facing the galaxy. If Master Yoda had the same vision that you did then it could well be what has prompted him to decide to break his long exile."

"Whatever has prompted Master Yoda's decision I'm glad he's made it," Hera said. "The rebellion could sure use his wisdom."

"Not to mention his skills as a military tactician," Rex added remembering that Yoda had been one of the top generals in the Grand Army of the Republic and not just because of his extremely high rank in the Jedi Order. Yoda had, like Generals Kenobi and Skywalker, had the knack for planning battle strategies that could be guaranteed to send the Separatists and their army of clankers packing.

"That too," Hera agreed. "Still I will admit that the very name Children of the Shadow fills me with a profound sense of apprehension."

"You're not on your own Hera," Ezra replied getting concurring nods from everyone in the cockpit. "You're not on your own."

* * *

 **Horizon-T Dropship**

 **System M-77677**

 **Sometime Later**

Colonel Angelo Dante felt like there were rattlesnakes performing a mating dance in his stomach as he sat patiently in the troop bay of one of the many transport – or T-configuration – Horizon dropships that were normally docked in the SDF-3's lower most hanger bays. All around him a full platoon of REF marines and engineers – as well as the android Janice – also sat patiently in the expansive troop bay. He didn't doubt that every single one of them – well except for Janice – was as nervous as he was about the mission that Admiral Hunter had assigned to them.

He thought back to the mission briefing. After some truly heroic work on the part of the engineers and damage control crews all the ships in the fleet had their hyperspace fold drives back online. The restoration of space folding capabilities meant that they could now leave this place, a place where they'd already been attacked once without warning or provocation, or they could have if it wasn't for one small detail. They were in a completely different galaxy to their own and thus had absolutely no idea of where anything was and space folding blindly into the unknown was not always a good idea.

Thus, they needed a map and hence why the admiral had ordered this mission. A mission that would see them boarding the derelict alien warship that Razor Squadron had been investigating earlier in the day. Once there they were to locate the alien warships computer core and download all its astronavigation information as well as any communications logs, language files and so on that they could find. The astronavigation data especially would enable them to jump to a safer location, hopefully somewhere quiet and out of the way until they could at least get their bearings properly and start working out how they could get home. If they could get home that was if they couldn't then having some idea of the galactic lay of the land so to speak would give them some idea of where it might be safe to settle down and build a colony.

In theory, the mission to the alien derelict was a simple one. Angelo however fully expected things to go wrong as the Terran race hardly had the best track record with derelict alien spacecraft. The SDF-1 still surprising them by opening fire without warning upon the Zentraedi – thereby starting the Robotech Wars – was a case in point why he intended to be extremely careful aboard the derelict. And he intended to make sure all the men and women under his command for this mission were just as careful.

"Colonel Dante we're approaching the derelict vessel," Lieutenant Commander Leon Bennett's voice abruptly said over the comm unit from where he was piloting the transport. The rest of his squadron formed up around the Horizon-T in standard escort formation.

"Very well I'll be right there," Angelo replied into his helmet pickup before standing up and leaving the troop bay. In a few moments, he was stepping onto the transports small and cramped cockpit. "Report commander."

"We've located an airlock on the most intact sections of the ship," Leon reported. "Sensors indicate that it is compatible with our ventral docking port."

"Can you tell if there is any sort of atmosphere onboard?" Angelo asked even as he smiled at the knowledge that the airlock was compatible with the ventral docking port, which in normal operations would generally have an Alpha fighter or other space fighter be it non-transformable or veritech docked to it as a last-ditch defender for the generally vulnerable Horizon-T as unlike the B and G configurations the T was unarmed relying entirely on speed and armour to protect it from hostile forces.

Leon carefully checked the sensors. "Negative there is no longer any atmosphere onboard," he reported after a moment. "It likely leaked out into space through the hull breaches when the ship lost life support."

 _I suppose a breathable atmosphere being present onboard would have been too much to hope for,_ Angelo thought with a resigned sigh even though the lack of atmosphere was hardly an obstacle to completing their mission. One of the improvements with CVR-4 armour over the older models was it had a small built in oxygen supply and a rebreather system that would convert the carbon dioxide they exhaled back into oxygen for up to seven hours. Just he hated using it as it tended to make his throat drier than the Sahara Desert after a while.

"Are we picking up anything else?" he asked.

"Yes, sir we are picking up very faint energy signatures on board but they're too weak for our sensors to localise."

"Probably just a little bit of juice left in some battery powered emergency lights then," Angelo replied knowing that even their latest sensors – based as they were off those of the Robotech Masters – had their limits. Despite what it sometimes seemed like robotechnology was not all-powerful after all. "Have you located the computer core?"

"Negative."

 _Oh great,_ Angelo thought with a mental sigh. That made things more complicated as it meant they'd first have to find a terminal, restore power with one of their emergency generators, and then Janice could trace the dataflows to the ships main computer core. While that sounded simple in practice it could easily mean them having to tromp through numerous sections on a badly damaged alien warship comparable in size to a Tokugawa-class battleship. What fun that would be. _Gah wish we could bring some Cyclones with us but we have no idea if that ships corridors are big enough to accommodate Cyclones in cycle mode let alone battle armour mode,_ he thought.

"How long until we dock," he asked.

"Two minutes sir."

"Understood," Angelo replied before heading back to the troop compartment where everyone looked up at him eagerly. "We're about to dock, get ready. Sensors confirm that there is little to know atmosphere onboard the alien ship so everyone make sure your armour is sealed and oxygen supplies and rebreathers on."

His words set off a flurry of activity as all the marines and engineers began checking and making sure theirs and each other's armour was ready for the mission ahead. Then the marines checked their weapons – all of them being armed with H-260 Valiant pulse particle rifles, H-90 Gallant pistols and a mixture of plasma and neural shock grenades – while the engineers and Janice made sure their own Gallants were ready and that they had all the tools and so on that they'd hopefully need aboard the vessel. Angelo for his part made sure his armour was sealed and ready before grabbing his own Valiant.

"Colonel Dante we're docking now," Bennett said over the comm a few moments before a few dull thuds echoed through the hull of the dropship as they locked onto the hull. "Stand by extending boarding collar, everyone braces for explosion."

Angelo and everyone braced themselves as a faint humming sound came from next to the airlock door leading to the bottom hatch. Angelo knew from experience that a laser would be currently cutting through the outer airlock doors of the alien vessel. A moment later the humming stopped replaced by a whooshing sound and he knew a foamed explosive would be being pumped into the chamber beyond, though that too stopped after a moment.

For a second more silence remained. Then with a concussive rumble the dropship shook violently as the boarding explosive was detonated ripping apart the doors on the other side of the airlock. The blast dissipated and the airlock door leading to the hatch opened, letting in a thick puff of smoke.

"Let's go," Angelo said as he raced forward, everyone following closely behind him making a clattering, clanking sound as heavily armoured boots echoed on the deck. Within seconds he was stepping through into the interior of the unknown vessel, magnetic souls on his boots automatically activating as he left the influence of the Horizon-T's own AG field.

It was immediately obvious to Angelo that the alien ship had no artificial gravity active as debris from the destroyed door hung suspended in the air. Well what little he could see as the corridor was pitch black. Though not for long as two engineers tossed two small tennis ball sized objects into the air, objects that immediately lit up and filled the corridor with light. "There should be a terminal around here somewhere," Angelo said. "Let's get moving. Carter, Petersen stay here and guard our exit. I doubt there's any danger onboard this dead hulk but there is no point in risking it."

"Yes sir," the two indicated marines answered already moving into positions on either side of the breached airlock.

"The rest of you follow me."

* * *

Unknown to Angelo Dante there was indeed danger aboard the derelict Republic star destroyer. Several dozen meters away and two decks down from the breached airlock a group of droids – secreted aboard the ship by the Empire as a last-ditch security measure should rebel insurgents or pirates board the vessel for its remaining stored munitions especially the tabana gas cartridges and proton bombs/torpedoes – were activated by the violent breaching of the airlock door.

Sensors glowing blood red the Imperial Sentry-class battle droids first automatically activated an emergency holonet homing beacon – a beacon that would summon the closest Imperial forces to this location to apprehend the rebels or pirates that were attempting to salvage something from the ship. Then all eight began moving heading towards where their analysis programs indicated the blast that had roused them came from intending to subdue and delay the intruders until the Empire arrived to take them.

* * *

 **Ten Minutes Later**

 _Sheesh this is depressing,_ Angelo thought as the boarding party came upon a large open room. During their journey through the ship they'd seen many bodies floating lifeless in the zero-gee. Most of them had been wearing white armour though one or two had been wearing blue uniforms. All of whom had appeared as male humans, each with identical facial features indicating their nature as clones, clones whose bodies if a little mummified had been almost perfectly preserved by both the lack of atmosphere and the fact that the interior of the ship was as cold as the surrounding space.

The room they'd come into was no different to the rest of the ship so far. Dozens of lifeless, identical bodies again some in uniform others in armour floated in the darkness. While clones were nothing new to anyone of the boarding party the fact that so many were identical to one another and all male was starting to give just about everyone in the investigation party the creeps. As not even the Robotech Masters had ever made clones completely identical to one another, even among triumvirate siblings there had always been some subtle variations like different hair colours and even sometimes completely different genders.

"Colonel Dante I believe I have found a computer terminal," Janice abruptly said the sound of the android's voice breaking the eerie silence of this place making everyone jump a little.

"A little warning next time please Janice you nearly gave me a heart attack then," Angelo replied turning to look at the android to see she'd moved to what was obviously a computer terminal, one that was like the rest of this vessel dark and lifeless.

"My apologies."

"No harm done. What have you got?"

"As I said it is a computer terminal but it currently lacks power," Janice replied.

"Well let's see what we can do about that," Angelo said. "Shepard get your butt up here and get this terminal started up."

"Yes sir," the young engineer replied immediately jogging up as best as he could in the non-existent gravity. Moving to the console the young engineer squatted down before opening a panel on the underside of the console and carefully scanning what was within. "Yes, I can restore power to this stand by."

Angelo nodded and watched as the much younger man, who honestly reminded him of Louie Nichols just without the extremely dorky glasses and incredibly annoying habit of dropping bits of trivia at the most inopportune moments, slipped off the backpack he was wearing over the top of his armour and removed both some tools from inside, some hyper-conductive wire and a cylindrical object about two feet long. He watched as the combat engineer carefully wired the cylinder – which he knew to be a micro-fusion generator as unlike the Masters they didn't use protoculture to power everything only really mecha and the most energy-hungry systems on their starships – into the terminal.

"Okay here goes everyone cross your fingers," Shepard said as he pressed the button to start up the generator, which immediately whirred obediently into life. For a moment, more nothing happened then the terminal hummed back to life, screens flickered once then came alive as it did all the lights in the room. And so, did the rooms gravity plating as with a crashing sound that made everyone wince all the bodies and other bits of floating debris in the room came crashing to the deck.

* * *

The sentry droids froze as their sensors abruptly registered a power surge. Immediately they began scanning looking for the source of the sudden upsurge in power generation aboard a ship that should be derelict. Within seconds they'd determined that the surge was coming from a crew lounge area several dozen meters away on this level.

Tactical analysis programs activated as the droids considered the new information. After a moment five of the eight droids changed direction and began advancing towards the source of the power surge while the remaining three continued towards the intruder's vessel.

* * *

Angelo blinked rapidly to clear the bright after images caused by the lights suddenly coming on from his vision. That had not been expected at all and from the shocked look on Shepard's face the engineer hadn't expected it to happen either. "Everyone alright," Angelo asked smiling when he got universal agreement from the rest of the boarding party. "Excellent. Janice can you see what you can get out of the computer please?"

"Yes Colonel," Janice answered moving up and carefully scanning the terminal. After a moment, she located what was according to her scans a data port that she could interface with – though bizarrely it was below the level of the keyboard. She had to wonder what the purpose of that was. She gave the A.I equivalent of a shrug and squatted down before holding out her right hand. She deactivated that hands holographic overlay and retracted her finger tips to expose her interface jacks, which she immediately plugged into the alien computer. Even considering her partially Haydonite computer systems it only took her a few moments to decipher to alien computer language and discover something rather curious.

"That's strange," she commented.

"What is it?" Angelo asked.

"While these computer systems are very advanced they're analogue systems," Janice replied, "nothing at all like the quantum matrix processing systems we ourselves use or even the advanced digital system still used aboard some of the older ships in the REF fleet. I am having to adapt my data filtration systems to compensate… done. I have gained fully access to the ships databanks; internal system security appears to be very primitive by our standards."

"Can you download their navigational database?"

"I am already doing so. I am also downloading all engineering and tactical data though I do not know how useful the latter will be as if I understand this time indexing right this vessel, the _Kimbala_ , has been derelict here for nineteen years, six months and eleven days."

"Still the data could prove useful," Angelo commented surprised to learn that this vessel had been abandoned here for so long. From what he'd seen of it so far while the hull was compromised in numerous locations – and that the bridge had been destroyed – the basic spaceframe of the ship was still sound. Thus, it wouldn't really take that long for a properly equipped shipyard to repair and refit the _Kimbala_ back into active service with the navy of whoever had built her.

"My thoughts exactly, Colonel," Janice agreed. "Data download complete. Disengaging link."

"Excellent. Shepard decouple that generator then we'll head back to the ship."

"Yes sir," the young engineer acknowledged. He was just about to squat down again so he could begin shutting down then decoupling the micro-fusion generator from the console when the rhythmic pounding of heavy metal feet on the deck caught everyone's attention. Almost in unison everyone turned to look across the room to the other entrance…

…in time for a nightmare to come through.

It was large standing two and a half meters tall and half as wide as it was tall. Surprisingly slender metallic arms and legs ended in a large vaguely triangular torso that appeared to be made of a dense metallic armour. A head with two glowing red eyes and a muzzle like snout rose from the top of the torso. One of the things hands ended in a large clawed hand while the other ended in a huge double-barrel energy weapon of some kind. It was obviously some kind of machine.

And it wasn't alone. Four more identical metal monstrosities walked into the room behind it and began spreading out into a line. The strange machines whirred and clicked to one another as though talking in some bizarre electronic language that none of the boarding party could understand. For a few moments, the five machines kept up the electronic chattering before as one raising their gun arms and opening fire, sending a torrent of dense red and white plasma bolts flying right towards the boarding party.

Only to miss by a mile as the marines and engineers training kicked in the moment the machines raised their weapons, prompting everyone to take cover so the bolts hit nothing but wall of metal backed chairs and the console sending up plumes of smoke and sparks.

"Well this is depressingly familiar," Angelo groaned as he leaned out of cover, raised his Valiant to target the closest drone and opened fire sending a full burst of five blue bolts of super-compressed charged particles at the attacking drone. The thing took the salvo high in its chest and staggered back emitting an electronic squeal, that if Angelo didn't know better would have seemed like a scream of pain, before dropping to its knees for a moment.

Only to quickly get back up as to his surprise it started to recover. Not about to give it a chance to recover fully he fired another full auto burst of charged particles, raking along the things torso and head turning the latter into a sparking mass of semi-molten metal. This time it went down for good spraying sparks and smoke. _One down four to go,_ Angelo thought before diving back into cover as one of the other drones sent a storm of bolts his way kicking up sprays of sparks, smoke and molten metal as they hit everything but him. A burst of charged particles from the Valiant of another marine slammed into the drone that had just fired him, demolishing its head and right arm dropping it to the floor as a smoking wreck.

The remaining three drones didn't last long after that as well-disciplined fire from multiple directions tore into them. In seconds, it was over with all five of the intimidating but otherwise surprisingly easy to deal with drones reduced to shattered, smouldering masses of metal and burning circuitry on the deck.

"Well that was bracing," Angelo said getting back to his feet. "What were those things? Some automated security drone left over from whatever battle this ship lost?"

"Possibly," Janice agreed. "But I will need time to translate and assimilate the data I downloaded before I can give a concrete answer on that issue."

Angelo nodded in understanding. He started to open his mouth to order the boarding party to return to the transport – they could leave the micro-fusion generator here as the things only had enough helium three fuel for an hour or so's continuous use and they were hardly classified REF technology, beyond the metal used in the casing there was no robotechnology employed in the generator – but before any sound could emerge from his lips his helmet comm unit crackled to life.

"Corporal Petersen to Colonel Dante," came the voice of one of the two marines he'd left to guard the transport over the helmet speakers.

"This is Colonel Dante what is it Corporal," Angelo asked.

"Sir I have to report that we've just been attacked. Carter is down, repeat Carter is down."

"Is he alright?" Angelo asked.

"I'm not sure sir. He was hit hard in the torso by two salvos of some type of plasma bolts, they've almost completely punched through his armour. Commander Bennett's just taken him aboard the transport."

"What attacked you Corporal."

"Armed drone's sir, two of them sir. We took them down."

"Drones! Big bipedal things with a nasty gun on one arm?"

"Yes, sir how'd you know?"

"Five of them just attacked us here. Thankfully no casualties. We're returning to the transport now. Tell Bennett to prepare to disengage as soon as we're aboard."

"Yes sir."

Angelo signed off with Petersen before speaking again. "Alright everyone back to the transport double time," he ordered.

"What about the portable generator sir," Shepard asked.

"Leave it, it's not worth risking anymore of our people if more of those droid things show up."

"Sir might I therefore suggest that rather than leave it here we set it to overload," Shepard replied. Angelo frowned thoughtfully as he considered the suggestion. Overloading the generator would certainly take care of anymore of those drones should they be onboard as the generator would – once it reached critical overload – explode with the force of a ten-kiloton bomb. Which would certainly destroy the _Kimbala_ as he doubted this ship was built strong enough to withstand such a nuclear detonation within the hull.

"If we set the generator to overload how long would be have before it blows?" he asked.

"Twelve minutes sir," Shepard replied. "We will have just enough time to get clear of this ship before it blows."

"Alright we'll do it," Angelo ordered after a moment more of thinking about it. "The rest of you start heading back to the transport now. Shepard and I will follow as soon as the overload is set. Everyone clear?" Nods came from all around. "Then get moving."

As Janice and the rest of the boarding party began filing out of the room, the marines being sure to stay alert just in case more of those drones showed up to challenge them, Shepard squatted back down next to the generator. Angelo stood protectively over the young engineer, like the marines being sure to keep his Valiant ready to fire upon any mechanical menace that came along. With one eye, he watched as Shepard ran through the sequence necessary to set the generator to overload.

"Done the overload is set," Shepard said standing back up as the micro-fusion generator began emitting a faint but growing – and very ominous sounding – whine.

"Alright let's get out of here ourselves."

"Right behind you sir."

* * *

It didn't seem to take quite as long to get back to the waiting transport. Within what had to only really be a couple of minutes Angelo was leading the young engineer back aboard their waiting Horizon-T. As soon as they were aboard he hit the button to close and seal the hatch before activating his helmet comm unit.

"Colonel Dante to Commander Bennett. We're all aboard cast off," he ordered.

"Aye sir casting off now," Leon Bennett answered from the cramped cockpit a microsecond before the magnetic clamps holding the transport to the side of the _Kimbala_ released with a slight jolt. A moment later he heard the faint rumbling of the transports ion fusion engines start and Angelo knew that they were now pulling away from the derelict warship.

Walking through the transport, nodding politely to the various members of the boarding party that he came across who all politely nodded back, he made his way to the cockpit. "How's Carter," he asked as he stepped into the cramped room.

"He's not good sir," Leon admitted as he guided the transport away. "While his CVR armour dissipated the worst of the blasts it didn't do much for the blunt force and thermal trauma. He's got a bad burn and at least one broken rip. I've put him in the auto-doc for now but we really need to get him to the SDF-3's medical bays. I've already radioed ahead to tell them to have a medical team waiting for us in the landing bay."

"Excellent work commander," Angelo replied with a smile before glancing out of the viewports in time to see the transport clear the edge of the diffuse asteroid field and begin moving towards the distant shapes of the SDF-3's battlegroup. "How long until we get back to the ship?"

"About ten minutes sir," Leon answered with a smile eager to get back aboard Admiral Hunter's flagship and hoping that the next time he got to fly he would be back in his veritech. Angelo smiled back, he wasn't psychic but he knew pilots and knew that the younger man couldn't wait to get home and eventually back into the cockpit of his Super Shadow fighter.

He didn't blame him for wanting to get back. He wanted to get back himself, get debriefing done and then retire to his quarters for a nice hot bath. Deciding not to go back into the troop bay, Angelo pulled down one of the spare jump seats at the back of the cockpit and sat down to wait. He was just starting to let himself relax when a flicker of pseudo-motion not far from the fleet caught his eye. He glanced over…

… in time to see eleven alien ships, including three triangular vessels that were each almost as big as the SDF-3 herself, appear out of nowhere and begin approaching the fleet. He resisted the impulse to groan in annoyance.

There went going off duty anytime soon.

* * *

 **Authors Notes: Well another chapter bites the dust and left on a nice big cliff hanger too. I did consider having the fight with the newly arrived Imperial fleet happen in this chapter but ultimately decided against it as the chapter was getting long enough as it was and I want to do this next epic clash of the titan's justice. As for who is commanding the Imperial fleet I will just say that I'm bringing one of my favourite Imperials from the old Legends canon into this fic and we'll leave it at that.**

 **Before anyone asks about Janice being along with the boarding party remember that in this story the _Deucalion_ is with the battlegroup and thus was not left behind in the Milky Way to be rescued by the _Icarus_ with Janice the only survivor. Far more of the science vessels crew – among them Exedore – are alive and it was Exedore who suggested Janice accompany the party that boarded the _Kimbara_ since she was the best qualified person they had to find a way to access a completely alien computer system. Doctor Lang agreed with him so Rick sent her along on the mission.**


	5. Chapter 5

_**A Left Turn at Albuquerque**_

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the characters that I am about to mangle around for my own amusement, all Star Wars and Robotech characters remain the property of Lucasfilm Ltd, Disney and Harmony Gold respectively, I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit from their use. As such please continue to keep the legal attack dogs, also known as lawyers, firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give anyone.**

* * *

 **Chapter Five**

 **Imperial Star Destroyer Judicator**

 **Flagship of 103** **rd** **Task Force**

 **A Short Time Earlier**

Admiral Durril sighed softly to himself as he read another fleet readiness report. Despite his best efforts to enforce discipline among the ships of the task force the report made it clear that moral and combat readiness on all ships was starting to suffer. He of course knew the reason for the reduction in crew efficiency and morale, it was complete and utter boredom. Unlike the clones of the old Grand Army of the Republic you could only run stormtroopers and navy ratings through so many readiness drills before it got boring and troops started just going through the motions rather than doing their damned jobs. Unfortunately stuck out here in the arse end of nowhere – protecting a single repair and supply depot and not a particularly important one at that as there was nothing here that any insurgents or pirates would really want to steal, certainly nothing that merited a sizeable fleet of frontline combat ships to protect it – there was nothing else to do but run drills.

It was quite frankly a humiliating assignment. But it was what he and the rebuilt 103rd Task Force had been relegated to after their disastrous campaign against the Rebel insurgents on Batonn. Putting down the report he sighed again as not for the first time since his thoughts turned back to that calamitous battle that had stalled his once promising career. He'd gone over it numerous times since then and concluded that he'd not been flexible enough in his tactics, the insurgents having known the standard Imperial siege tactics and had planned the defences of Scrim Island accordingly. He had been both too prideful and too rigid in his battle tactics which had allowed the insurgents to gain the initiative over his force.

Which had eventually led to the ultimate humiliation of not only his flagship being rendered dead in space, the victim of a direct hit from a planetary ion cannon, and needing to be towed back to a space dock for repairs but being taken off the mission. To make it even more humiliating – if that was at all possible – Imperial Command had given the task of subduing the insurgents to that Chiss admiral. Who'd somehow not only defeated them but gotten a promotion to Grand Admiral from the Emperor himself out of it.

To him and indeed most of his men the mere thought of an alien getting so high a rank in the Empire was intolerable. Honestly had his Imperial Majesty not learned the lesson of the Clone Wars? Aliens were trouble, always had been and always would be. As such putting one in such a high position was the height of lunacy. The bleep of his desk comm link broke him out of his thoughts before he could really start raging – again – about the ascension of Thrawn to such a high position in the Imperial regime.

Reaching out he tapped the offending device. "Yes?" he asked keeping his voice calm.

"Admiral we've received an urgent communique from Imperial Sector Command," came the voice of Captain Brandei from the bridge "I'm sending it to your terminal now."

Instantly the desk computer terminal lit up and displayed the urgent message from the local sector command. Durril immediately gave it his full attention. _Interesting,_ he thought as he began reading the report and learned that one of the, admittedly fiendish, traps that the Imperial Security Bureau had left in some of the old Clone Wars battlefields had been tripped. He felt his excitement begin to grow as he read that the sentry droids stationed aboard a derelict Republic Star Destroyer had been activated by the ship being boarded. As programmed the droids had activated their emergency holonet beacon before moving to confront the intruders who, to his mind, could only be rebels. They were the only ones who would be both bold enough and desperate enough to try boarding one of the derelict warships, presumably in search of high yield munitions from the ships magazines.

Imperial Sector Command seemed to agree and were ordering him to take the 103rd Task Force to intercept and detain the rebels if possible or to blast them to pieces if not. Apparently, a light cruiser – the _Vigilance_ – which should have been in the area had ceased responding to holonet communications from Sector Command. Which to the Sector Commanders mind – and honestly his own too – indicated that the ship had likely responded to an earlier alert from the system, presumably from one of the probe droids secreted like mines among the battlefield debris. Upon arrival, the _Vigilance_ would have certainly challenged any rebel forces present in the system and had been destroyed for its trouble. Considering that, and the activation of the sentry droids, the decision had been made to finally let the 103rd get back to doing the job that every man and woman in the fleet felt that they'd supposed to have been doing all along.

Which was bashing rebel skulls in.

He turned back to the comm resisting, just, the impulse to grin at the thought of at last having something productive to do. "Captain instruct all ships to break orbit and assume standard combat formation," he ordered. "Sound battle stations, then set course for System M-77677 and engage the hyperdrive at maximum speed. I will be there momentarily."

"Yes sir. Admiral may I ask what is going on?"

Durril frowned but decided he might as well answer after all his flag captain had been starting to get as frustrated with their incredibly boring assignment as he had been. "Some insurgents have fallen into one of the ISB's little honey traps," he answered, "we're going to arrest them, or burn their ships from the stars if they're stupid enough to resist." He didn't add that he fully expected the rebels to resist as their likely destruction of a light cruiser marked them down as a particularly determined group of anti-Imperial fanatics.

"Understood sir," Captain Brandei answered, a slight but completely understandable note of glee in his voice at the thought of finally doing something productive again, and signed off. Mere seconds later the familiar sound of alarm klaxons filled the air summoning the star destroyers crew to their battle stations. Durril grinned as he stood up even as a new sound joined the wailing of the alarms, the distant rumbling sound of the _Judicator's_ massive ion fission engines roaring into life as they began to propel the massive warship out of orbit of the small planetoid that housed the supply post.

He carefully composed himself as he stepped out into the corridors which were now a beehive of activity as stormtroopers and crew members raced to man their battle stations – all of them moving with an urgency that had been missing from the last few drills, the fact that the ship was moving out convincing all of them that this was a real mission and not just another readiness drill.

In seconds, he was stepping onto the bridge, skirting around a darting mouse droid with the consummate ease of one who was used to dodging the things which like astrodroids were a ubiquitous sight on all Imperial ships and installations. "Status report," he ordered calmly as he walked along the walkway above and between the two crew work pits and the front viewports.

"Sir all sections report battle stations fully manned and ready," Captain Brandei reported as he handed a data pad off to a waiting lieutenant, "all turbolaser and ion cannon batteries charged and ready to fire. All concussion missile and proton torpedo tubes loaded and ready to fire. Deflectors on stand by for combat level. All TIE fighter and bomber squadrons standing by for maximum launch."

"Excellent captain," Durril replied. "Fleet status?"

"All ships report ready sir," Brandei answered, "we're just finishing getting all ships in formation for the jump to lightspeed."

"Very good. How long until we arrive after we've made the jump?"

"Five minutes sir."

"Excellent."

Leaving his flag captain to finish off any last-minute preparations Durril turned to look out the viewports at the endless star and nebula studded blackness of space. From here he could see some of the task forces six light cruisers finishing moving into position for the jump. For a few more seconds nothing seemed to happen then with a bright flare from the thrusters and a momentary flicker of pseudo-motion the first of the light cruisers vanished into hyperspace mere seconds before the viewports filled with first star lines then a swirly blue tunnel-like hyperspatial conduit as the _Judicator_ herself went into lightspeed. He allowed himself a small smile of anticipation…

…finally, they were doing something worthwhile again.

* * *

 **SDF-3 Pioneer**

 **A Few Minutes Later**

Admiral Rick Hunter had a puzzled frown on his face as he made his way into the main laboratory section of the SDF-3 – one of the few areas of the ship that hadn't been changed much since the vessel was first built though all the equipment had been upgraded over the years not to mention the repairs they'd had to make to the power conduits after the Invid Regent helped that traitorous bastard Edwards escape – in response to a call from Doctor Lang. He had absolutely no idea what the now quite elderly German genius – the farther of most if not all the Terran applications of robotechnology especially the veritechs – wanted but he trusted him enough to come immediately.

He nodded at the two Cyclone-armoured marines standing before the entrance to the labs – and from there the access passage to the chamber housing the protoculture matrix – who inclined their heads and nodded back in difference to his rank and station before parting to let him through. Passing between the two seven-feet tall armoured marines Rick made his way inside and headed straight for the main laboratory. As he walked he politely acknowledged the greetings from the various staff moving back and forth between the subsidiary labs doing whatever it was the science teams did on a day to day basis.

Arriving in the main lab he wasn't surprised to see Exedore present – the Zentraedi having shuttled over from the _Deucalion_ as the science vessel having been quite significantly damaged during the neutron-s missile test firing fiasco – eyes seemingly clued to one of the microscopes though he was somewhat surprised to see an engineer, wearing the insignia of one of those who dealt with both the matrix and the main reflex furnaces, present having a quite serious looking conversation with Doctor Lang. _Ugh oh something's wrong,_ Rick thought as he got close enough to hear the tail end of their conversation.

"…. showing zero-point energy levels substantially higher than normal," the engineer was saying.

"And you have been unable to determine the cause?" Doctor Lang asked.

"Not at this time sir. We've checked all the matrix settings they are correct. To be honest it's almost like some external force is acting upon the protoculture increasing its energy storage density to a level that we've honestly never seen before."

"When is the next production cycle?"

"Based on our current usage rate and the levels of our storage matrix's we won't need to run a full production cycle for another six days. We'd only just finished our last run when quality control noticed to anomaly."

"Hmm all right I want you to run a limited production cycle. Just enough to fill several storage canisters have them brought here to the labs for analysis. In the meantime, begin recalibrating the all reflex furnaces and energizer modules to cope with the additional power."

"Aye sir," the engineer nodded making a note on the tablet he was holding. "Should we also take some samples from the greenhouses? See if the anomaly is on the Flowers of Life's end?"

"A good idea. Have one of the horticulturists take two samples from both the mature flowers and the spore pods," Lang answered as he belatedly noticed Rick's arrival in the room. "Now if you'll excuse me lieutenant I have other matters to attend to. Keep me updated on what you find."

"Of course, sir," the lieutenant acknowledged before turning and walking away, exchanging a polite nod with Rick as he did so as like most of the other officers onboard the lieutenant had learned long ago that Rick didn't like it when the saluted him all the time. Unlike some officers the former veteran veritech pilot was known to favour a more informal atmosphere at least outside of combat.

"Problem?" Rick asked Lang as the lieutenant left.

"More of a puzzle than a problem," Lang answered with a sigh. "After our last production run we noticed a substantial increase in the amount of energy stored in the recently produced protoculture almost twice that as normal."

Rick frowned. "Correct me if I'm wrong doctor but doesn't the matrix already extract as much energy as possible from the Flowers of Life during the refining process?" he questioned. "The power levels shouldn't go up, go down occasionally due to contaminants sneaking into the storage tanks but not go up."

"Indeed, and that's the puzzle," Lang answered. "Especially as the small amount of data that Cabell gave us on the matrix indicates that something like this has never happened before."

"Are we in any danger?"

"No, I don't believe so. It is a relatively simple matter to recalibrate the computers managing all the reflex furnaces and protoculture energizer modules to compensate for the additional power input. It's just another puzzle to add to the list of puzzles that we've started noticing over the last couple of hours. That's why myself and Exedore asked you to come down here we've got something to show you."

"What is it?" Rick asked as Lang led him over to where Exedore was working. The increasingly elderly looking Zentraedi looked away from the microscope to study them as they approached.

"Greetings admiral," Exedore said politely. "We've noticed something rather curious, curious and honestly a little concerning."

"Oh?" Rick asked. Exedore gestured for him to look at the microscope. Raising an eyebrow at the other man Rick did as he was bid and frowned as he saw what looked like a microbial cell. It was like something he would have seen decades earlier in High School biology class – not that he ever really paid that much attention in biology as it just hadn't interested him, especially as back then he'd always assumed it would have been his destiny to take over the Hunter Flying Circus after Pops retired as Pops had from his grandfather a belief that had held till that fateful first and only space fold of the SDF-1. Like so much else the Hunter Flying Circus had been erased from existence during the Rain of Death – but somehow different at the same time.

"What am I looking at," he asked pulling back. "It looks like a bacterial cell."

"That is what we thought it was," Lang answered. "We found them on the hull of the escape pod that our prisoners were in. While surprising it wasn't that worrying as it's not entirely unheard of for bacteriological organisms to be able to survive in space there are numerous examples in the Tirolian archives of such things."

"So, what's the problem?" Rick asked.

"The problem is admiral that we are now seeing more of them," Exedore answered. "Please look at the next two slides."

Raising an eyebrow again Rick did as he was bid and once again saw the same organism. Once it appeared to be suspended in a gaseous mixture of some kind the other was clearly suspended inside a human cell. "Where did these samples come from," he asked pulling back and giving the two geniuses a questioning look.

"The first is a sample of the gas taken from the plasma weapons fired at our troops by our two prisoners," Exedore answered, "we took a sample from the weapons as we wanted to determine what the composition of the plasma bolts was it turns out to be tabana gas with some helium contaminant which is probably responsible for the reddish colouration of the bolts."

"Tabana gas? I've never heard of a gas by that name before."

"There is no reason that you would have, admiral. It's an extremely rare gaseous element with the unusual properties of having a strong nucleonic energy charge as well as the ability to be compressed at the atomic level," Exedore answered, "coupled with a ready ability to be ionized into a plasmatic state tibana has the potential to be used in the creation of plasma weapons. Though its rare nature back in our own galaxy means that no race known to the Robotech Masters ever did use it to fuel such weapons. It is obviously far more common here if it is fuelling weapons. However, we were not expecting to find this microbe or whatever it actually is suspend in the material."

"And the second sample?" Rick asked getting back on topic though mentally filing the information on tabana gas away for later reference.

"It's from one of our prisoners," Exedore replied. "Based on the test and an on routine medical scans each of our two prisoners has these microbes in their blood and some of their cells."

"So, is it a widespread bug in this galaxy?" Rick asked knowing that in interstellar civilizations it was not at all uncommon for viruses, germs, and other bacteriological agents to migrate from world to world basically wherever any race went it took numerous bacterial and viral organisms with it no matter what precautions were taken to prevent it.

"I believe it to be yes," Exedore answered, "thankfully our tests indicate that the microbe is incompatible with Terran, Tirolian and Zentraedi physiology our immune systems apparently destroy it immediately. Thus, there is no danger from the bug to the health of anyone admit our fleet."

"So, what is concerning you about it?" Rick asked.

Exedore grimaced. "One of our other researchers tested the microbes using one of the bio scanners we use to determine if captured Invid biomatter is completely inert or not," he answered, "each of the microbes is emitting a small amount of the same type of bioenergy that Invid biomatter – specifically the biomatter used in the 'brain' organic computers – emits though on a much lower level and on a different frequency band."

"So, your telling me that these microbes are telepathic?" Rick asked remembering that the incredibly complex biocomputers known as Invid brains controlled inorganic battle drones like the deadly Hellcat and the lower level organic Invid piloted mecha like the scout through a form of technological telepathy. Quite how that worked they'd never been able to work out as there was so much about the organic-based technology of the Invid that they just did not understand. Elements that even the Tirolians – arguably the masters of both advanced cloning and advanced bioengineering given they'd literally created entire species with the Zentraedi being the most well-known of all their creations – couldn't understand.

"At least on a subconscious level yes," Exedore answered, "as to what effect this low-level telepathy would have on the hosts mind it could be no more than a subconscious urging at best or like a post-hypnotic command like the conditioning the Robotech Masters used on my people and on their triumvirate clones at worst. We just do not know."

"So, did the Invid create these things?" Rick asked wondering if the Invid had come to this galaxy before as there was still so much that they didn't really know or understand about the protoplasmic creatures.

"No, they didn't admiral," Exedore said hastening to reassure him. "The telepathic field frequency is completely different to anything created by the Invid. In addition, the microbes have none of the other hallmarks of something created by Invid biotechnology."

"So, are these microbes a threat to us?" Rick asked referring to the fleet and the seeming telepathic ability of the alien microbes. While it was comforting to know that the microbes couldn't infect anyone in the fleet, or rather that their immune systems already saw this bug as an invasive organism and would thus destroy it, that didn't rule out the telepathy affecting them in other ways.

"We don't know," Lang admitted. "It will take more time and many more tests before we can determine if there is a threat to us in these microbes or not. But we both felt you should be informed of these findings before we proceed further with the investigation."

"I see," Rick replied a moment before the comm unit sitting snug on his right ear bleeped slightly for his attention. "Excuse me," he said gaining understanding nods from both Lang and Exedore even as he reached up and tapped the offending device. "Yes?"

"Sir, Colonel Dante's boarding party report mission accomplished they have the star charts we require. Janice reports she is translating them into a format our navigational computers will be able to understand now and will upload them when she has finished," Lieutenant Pren reported calmly from the bridge.

"Excellent lieutenant. Where's the transport now are they still docked with the derelict?"

"Negative sir the transport has just disengaged from the derelict and is making its way back to the ship accompanied by its escort. Admiral they're requesting a medical team meet them in the docking bay, they have a casualty."

"What! Did they say how he was hurt?" Rick asked as alarm bells began to ring inside his head as he recalled the earlier encounter Lieutenant Commander Bennett had had with a hostile drone of some kind in the debris field during their first sweep of the area. Had they encountered more hostile drones aboard the derelict as it wouldn't be the first time they'd encountered sentient non-organic life – the Haydonites were a case in point being entirely mechanical creatures. Though they at least had – according to Ambassador Veidt at least – once been organic beings who'd evolved to inhabit synthetic bodies, though after the fiasco with the neutron-s missiles he now took everything Veidt had ever told him with a battloid-sized pinch of salt.

"Yes, sir apparently, they had just finished downloading the navigational database from the derelicts computers when they were attacked by large bipedal mechs of some kind," Pren answered promptly. "Colonel Dante believes they were probably security mechs activated by their violent breaching of one of the derelicts airlocks as five attacked the expedition team while two more attacked the marines posted to guard the Horizon-T. All hostile mechs terminated but one of the marines was injured by heavy plasma weapon fire. I have alerted the closest sickbay to send a team to the hanger bay."

"Very well keep me informed lieutenant."

"Aye sir."

"Problem Rick," Emil asked as Rick signed off.

"Possibly," Rick admitted before relaying what he'd just been told to the other two men prompting Terran and Zentraedi alike to exchange a look of mutual concern.

"While it could just have been an automated security response the fact that our people have been attacked for the second time in the debris field is most concerning as it could have just as easily been a boobytrap meant to capture or kill anyone attempting to board the derelict," Exedore commented.

Rick nodded back in agreement a microsecond before the sudden wailing of alarms split the air. _Now what,_ he thought with a silent groan before tapping his comm again. "Hunter to Bridge report," he ordered.

"Admiral a fleet of eleven unknown ships has just appeared from hyperspace a hundred thousand kilometres off our bow. Six are identical in size and configuration to the vessel that attacked us earlier, two are of similar size but are even more lightly armed… admiral each appears to be emitting focused artificial gravity wells," Lieutenant Pren reported.

Rick frowned wondering what the purpose of that was, unless they were somehow there to try and stop them folding. "Are the gravity wells strong enough to affect space folds," he asked. "And what about the other three ships."

"Negative sir while the artificial gravity wells are quite strong they're not strong enough to overly affect our hyperspace entry vector should we have to space fold. As for the other three each is almost as big as this ship though their power emissions are much less than ours. Sir all three are launching fighters. All eleven ships have powered weapons and have energy shields over their hulls," Pren reported. "Orders sir."

"Scramble the veritechs, activate defence barriers and bring all operational weapons systems online," Rick ordered. "Then transmit our first contact package to them, maybe we'll get lucky and this group will be in a mood to talk. I'll be right there."

"Aye sir," Pren acknowledged before signing off.

"Do you really think they will be in a mood to talk Rick?" Lang asked.

Rick sighed. "Knowing our history with first contacts probably not," he admitted. "But there is no harm in hoping. Excuse me gentlemen."

Both Lang and Exedore nodded in understanding as Rick turned and hurried away heading back out into the corridors and from there to one of the high-speed lifts that would carry him up to the bridge on the second level of the command citadel. As he walked he mused on the last bit of the conversation with Emil and Exedore. He meant what he'd said about hoping the alien fleet was willing to talk rather than exchange weapons fire with them as it would make an extremely refreshing change from what normally happened when they encountered someone new to them. Stepping into the lift to the command citadel Rick sighed. He would hope for the best, that he would be able to establish some communication with these people and avoid any unpleasantness, but he would also prepare for the worst. If they did come to blows then he would do whatever was necessary to protect the hundreds of thousands of men and women under his command in this fleet.

Even if that required he burn those ships from the stars.

* * *

 **Imperial Star Destroyer Judicator**

 **A Few Moments Earlier**

The moment the _Judicator_ dropped out of hyperspace Admiral Durril knew that the situation in this system was very different to what he had first assumed it would be when he received the mobilization orders from Imperial Sector Command. In fact, it was potentially far, far more serious. He had expected there to be a few rebel ships in system either Nebulon-B escort frigates, C90 Corellian corvettes or maybe a former Separatist ship that the rebels had found and refurbished – it had happened a few times before after all – he had not expected to find a fleet this size here.

A fleet composed of ships that didn't look like anything he had ever seen before.

After a few moments surprise at the discovery began to fade being replaced with a bizarre hybrid of concern and excitement as he gazed at the fleet – especially the star destroyer-sized beast in the middle of the fleet – and he began to note details that made him think that whoever these ships belonged to it wasn't the rebellion. The designs were wrong and the writing he could see on the hulls – presumably nameplates – was written in a language that he'd honestly never seen before. The symbols on the hulls, a strange red kite on a white circular background and a large yellow inverted triangle with three ellipses intersecting over it, were also completely unknown certainly they were radically different to the star bird symbol that the rebels had started using ever since that traitorous Senator Mon Mothma had organised the different cells into a formal alliance. And then there were the gun turrets as something about the design of the dual and triple barrels told him that the weapons were not a turbolaser, ion cannon or indeed any other kind of weapon he was familiar with.

Everything pointed to the fact that this fleet wasn't a rebel fleet. It was someone new, someone who'd never been encountered by the Empire before. If they were new to this part of space it would certainly explain why they'd boarded the derelict star destroyer. They weren't after weapons but after the ships navigational database as even though her bridges were gone the _Kimbala_ would still have all her star charts stored in the main navigational computer which in theory a sufficiently advanced droid would be able to access from practically any computer terminal in the command tower area of the ship.

"Sir all fighters have launched and are requesting instructions," Captain Brandei said from behind him. "We are also receiving communications from all our other ships requesting instructions."

"Tell all ships to hold back for now," Durril ordered, "no aggressive moves whatsoever."

"Sir?" Brandei asked.

"Whoever those belong to, captain, they are not rebels," Durril answered. "Whoever they are they're someone new and I don't want to get into a fight with someone whose strength's and capabilities we have absolutely no idea of unless I cannot avoid it."

"Understood sir."

"Admiral we're receiving a signal from the largest unknown vessel," a communications rating called out from the work pit. "Pattern indicates simple mathematical concepts."

"What could be the purpose of that," Brandei wondered aloud.

"Have you forgotten your history captain," Durril asked with a slight amused smirk. "It's a first contact package. Such things were commonly used to establish basic communications between new species in the early years of the Republic. We are obviously as unknown to these people as they are to us. Communications send a basic mathematics package back along with a dictionary of basic galactic basic terms, grammar and syntax."

"Yes sir," the lieutenant in charge of the communications section answered.

"Sensors what can you tell me about those ships?" Durril asked. _Beyond the obvious that is,_ he thought as just looking at them, and the massive ranks of weapons lining the hulls not to mention those two frighteningly huge cannon muzzles in the bows of the star destroyer-size ship made it clear that the ships were warships. Warships that, since they had no idea of their abilities, he would have to be extremely careful dealing with as any miscalculation could cost him and his entire command their lives.

"Admiral com-scan indicates that all but one of the vessels are definitely warships," the sensor section chief reported. "All twenty-one ships are very heavily armed with many cannon and missile ports. We are picking up massive power surges on all ships as well as a massive amount of sub-atomic particle production which appears to be focusing in the turrets. The hulls are composed of an extremely dense metallic alloy that our sensors are currently unable to identify. Admiral they're launching fighters… lots of fighters."

"How many fighters and can you tell me what kind of subatomic particles they're generating," Durril asked. "And what about their power emissions."

"Com-scan tallies over a thousand-fighter craft and climbing," sensors reported stumbling over the words. _A thousand fighters,_ Durril thought in a combination of shock and horror as between the _Judicator, Vengeance_ and _Oath Sworn_ he only had a total of two hundred and sixteen TIE's with eighty percent of them being the basic TIE fighter. Launching so many fighters to be ready to counter his own was overkill, not to mention who in the universe carried so many fighters on their ships in the first place? Not even the Separatists had used that many fighters and they'd been very annoyingly fond of fighter swarm tactics.

He forced down his shock as the officer continued speaking. "Sir the unknown power emissions are incredibly high," the officer reported. "Each of the smaller ships is putting out almost as much energy per second as our main solar-ionisation reactor. The nine largest ships are putting out between six and eight times as much energy as we are. Com-scan identifies the subatomic particles as protons."

"Proton-based energy weapons? Interesting," Brandei commented getting a nod of agreement from his superior officer. Particle based energy weapons were not unheard of, ion cannons were one such weapon, but nobody known to either the Empire or the Republic before them had ever produced a proton-based particle energy weapon before. Not that there had ever really been that much research into such advanced particle weapons given the ready availability of tabana gas.

"What about life form readings? Can you identify who they are?" Durril asked.

"Com-scan cannot be certain but they fall within a ninety to ninety-eight percent margin of either being a new human or near human species."

 _Interesting,_ Durril thought with an inward smile. This was perfect if they were indeed humans or near humans – who were just about tolerable to the racial doctrines of the Empire – then who knew he might be able to convince them to voluntarily join the Empire. Though being human or near-human did raise the question of where the kriffing hell they'd come from. The most likely explanation was they were from the unknown regions and could well be descendants of colonists who'd left one of the major human homeworld's like Corellia, Coruscant, Alderaan or even Mandalore tens of thousands of years ago when the galaxy was mostly unexplored by any of the current spacefaring races. If he could persuade them to join the Empire then his majesty was sure to reward him handsomely.

Before he could think anything more of it an incredibly bright flash of light from the direction of the asteroid field momentarily blinded him. At least until the bridge viewports automatically polarized to dim the glare. "What was that," he demanded as the glare rapidly faded causing the viewports to begin to clear.

"Sir sensors indicate that it was a combination of a small thermonuclear explosion and multiple simultaneous proton and concussion warhead detonations," sensors reported. "Origin the wreck of the RSD _Kimbala_. Admiral we are detecting a single craft heading towards the unknown's flagship. From its size com-scan believes it to be a boarding shuttle of some type."

 _Well there goes any chance of peacefully persuading these unknowns to join the Empire,_ Durril thought with a mental sigh of resignation before straightening up. While mining of the _Kimbala's_ databanks could be forgiven, the ISB had been careful not to leave anything more useful than star charts in the databanks of all the ships they used in their little honey trap operations, as could fighting the sentry droids – those things were not only built to be intimidating but weren't the smartest of droids and would just see the unknowns as intruders and targets to be eliminated – deliberately leaving a weapon behind to destroy the ship after disembarking could not. Especially as under Imperial law the _Kimbala_ had remained the property of his majesty Emperor Palpatine and thus destroying her was an act of war against the Imperial regime.

He now no longer had a choice but to demand the unknowns surrender or engage them in battle if they refused.

"Alright dispatch a squadron of fighters to intercept and detain the boarding shuttle," he ordered. "Weapons fire a warning shot across the largest ships bow. Communications send a message to the unknowns tell them that they have been found guilty of engaging in acts of aggression and sedition against the Galactic Empire and that they are to stand down and prepare to be boarded immediately or face destruction. Tell them that they have one minute to comply."

"Yes sir."

Durril turned his full attention to the viewports and watched as one of the _Judicator's_ heavy turbolaser turrets fired sending two brilliant emerald-coloured bolts of plasmatic energy at the unknown flagship. The bolts flying past its bow in a clean miss. Simultaneously he watched as a squadron of TIE fighters began advancing towards the boarding shuttle.

 _Your move,_ he thought looking at the unknown flagship.

* * *

 **Bridge**

 **SDF-3 Pioneer, That Same Time**

Sitting in his command chair Rick scowled as the unknown flagship fired what was clearly a warning shot across his flagships bow. Things had been going so well, the data packet that they'd received from the unknowns in response to their own first contact package had been proving itself to be extremely helpful in translating the extremely archaic form of Tirolian that these people seemed to speak into Terran standard. Communications had almost got the translation matrix ready, opening the real possibility of communicating with whoever these people were, only for this to happen.

"Admiral we're receiving a transmission from their lead ship," communications reported. "Audio only, tying in the translation matrix now."

"On speakers," Rick ordered.

"Aye sir."

The overhead speakers crackled once and then a human male voice spoke. "Attention unknown vessels this is the Imperial Star Destroyer _Judicator_. You have been found guilty of engaging in acts of sedition and aggression against the Galactic Empire. You are hereby ordered to power down all weapons, recall all fighters and prepare to be boarded. Failure to comply with this demand will result in your immediate termination. You have one minute to comply."

 _Damn it,_ Rick thought with a mental groan of annoyance though he could guess what had prompted these 'Imperials' to issue their surrender or be destroyed demand. The destruction of the derelict he'd dispatched Colonel Dante, Janice and a squad of marines to investigate and acquire star maps from. Quite what had happened to destroy the vessel he couldn't be sure – not until Dante was debriefed would he know that – but he could guess as the only things they had capable of creating nuclear explosions were micro-fusion generators and even then, they would have to be deliberately set to overload to cause such a blast. If he had to guess Dante had had to use a micro-fusion generator at some point before his team had been attacked and then with a man down set it to overload rather than attempt to recover it while also tending to an injured man.

"Admiral a squadron of Imperial fighters is breaking off and advancing towards the Horizon-T," Lieutenant Pren reported.

"What can you tell me about those fighters," Rick asked.

"Sir sensors indicate that the fighters are propelled by dual ion engines of some type, the acceleration from them is incredible almost twice that of an Alpha fighter. No armour to speak of, weapons consist of two pulse cannons of some type."

"What are you going to do Rick," Lisa asked softly from where she was, once again, standing next to her husband's command chair.

"I can't surrender. We can't run yet without the star maps not to mention I'm not leaving our people behind. That doesn't leave much choice does it," Rick answered.

"No, it doesn't," Lisa admitted with a sigh knowing that her husband was right. While it would have been nice to have established a peaceful relationship with these 'Imperials' especially if this Galactic Empire was what it sounded like the destruction of the derelict and the Imperials surrender demand made that impossible. They had no choice now but to fight. "We must fight."

Rick nodded. "Here we go again then," he said softly suddenly realising exactly what Captain Gloval must have felt all those years ago on the SDF-1 after the automatic firing of the reflex cannon started the First Robotech War. He didn't want to fight but now there was no real alternative. "Weps lock interceptor missiles on those fighters heading for the transport and fire. All fighters break and engage. Capital ships to engage the Imperial warships, attempt to target weapons only but if necessary take them down."

"Aye sir," came the acknowledgement from multiple stations around the bridge.

"And so, it begins," Rick said softly as he turned his full attention to the tactical hologram that immediately coalesced into existence in front of him…

…mere seconds before a faint shiver of recoil ran through the deck beneath his feet as a storm of missiles was instantly flung into space towards the Imperial fighters threatening the Horizon-T.

* * *

For the first time since arriving in this new galaxy the SDF-3 fired her weapons in anger. From two of the forty port side, defensive missile launchers Mark-III Foxfire interceptor missiles were hurled into space by powerful electromagnetic launch rails lining each pepperbox-style launchers firing tubes. The missiles engines fired up immediately sending all twenty of the small lethally fast missiles, that back in their own galaxy all the REF's enemies had learned to fear, streaking towards the single squadron of TIE fighters advancing towards the Horizon transport and its escort of veritech fighters.

The Imperial fighters were caught completely by surprise as the missiles slammed home before the pilots could even begin to react to the missile salvo heading right towards them. In an instant, every one of the mere twelve TIE fighters died, paper thin durasteel armour offering no protection against both the sheer kinetic force of the high-speed missiles and the small but powerful 15kg plasma explosive warhead each missile carried.

The response from the Imperials was immediate.

Like bolts of malignant, emerald green lightning turbolaser bolts shot out from multiple heavy and standard turbolaser cannon arrays on the _Judicator_. Each bolt heading with unerring accuracy towards the SDF-3. Only they never reached her as a mere two seconds from impact a glowing silver-white tile of energy appeared right in their path. Each turbolaser bolt shattered on impact with the pinpoint barrier, breaking apart and dissipating in space as a luminous green fog as the plasma core of the bolts dissipated.

Unable and unwilling to let the attack go unanswered the SDF-3 fired back, heavy and standard particle beam turrets locking onto their prey and firing sending dozens of brilliant whiteish-blue beams of highly compressed, supercharged relativistic protons towards the _Judicator_. Travelling at near relativistic speeds the particle beams slammed into the Imperial-class star destroyer with searing force. In a testament to the skills of the shipwrights who'd built her the _Judicator's_ shields absorbed eighty percent of the beams energy the remaining twenty percent breaking through to slice into the armoured hull but not doing much in the way of damage. Well beyond violently rocking the star destroyer.

As if that exchange of fire was the signal that they'd been waiting for the rest of the 103rd task force opened fire pounding out brutal salvos of turbolaser and ion cannon fire. As their capitals opened up with everything they had the Imperial TIE bombers began streaking towards the three largest ships in the REF formation intent on unleashing their cargos of powerful proton bombs on the hulls of the three star destroyer sized ships. TIE fighters falling into escort formation around them.

They only got a dozen kilometres before running into a massive storm of Hammerhead and Foxfire missiles launched from both defending shadow-cloaked fighters and the defensive missile banks of the capital ships. The avalanche of destruction washed over the tiny – by the standards of the hundreds or thousands of fighter and other battle mecha formations that the REF was used to dealing with and had structured their defences accordingly – Imperial fighter and bomber force and just swept them from the sky. TIE fighters and bombers turning into momentary fireballs as plasma explosives reduced every one of them to their component elements.

Even as the last of the Imperial fighters and bombers died the REF capital ships returned the Imperials fire unleashing a blistering hail of high-powered heavy and standard particle beams. Charged particle beams met Imperial shields, punched through to cut into the cold metal hulls of the Imperial ships. Almost immediately an Imperial ship died, a light cruiser its moderate shields and thin armour offering no real protection against heavy beams designed to punch through dense highly refractive, dispersive and ablative robotech alloy armour such as the hull of a Zentraedi battleship and to keep on punching hard. Despite the best efforts of REF gunners to limit their targets to weapons, as ordered by Admiral Hunter, the light cruiser was ravaged the beams cutting right through the ship ripping it in half from stem to stern. The two halves of the unfortunate cruiser drifted apart for a moment before silently exploding together as the ruptured hypermatter reactor detonated.

Amid the rapidly escalating maelstrom of destructive energy the SDF-3 and the _Judicator_ fired upon one another again. Once again most of the turbolaser and ion cannon fire from the Imperial-class star destroyer – power sufficient to rip a fully shielded Nebulon-B escort frigate apart – was blocked by pinpoint barriers materialising right in the paths of almost all the streams of bolts. Only a few shots slipped through the heavy turbolaser bolts melting and burning small but steadily widening holes in the outermost layers of the mighty battlefortress dense armour even as most of the energy was instantly reflected out into space. The few ion charges that got through did slightly more damage the intense electromagnetic flux caused by the alternating positive and negative ion charges causing power spikes and minor systems failures.

Multiple heavy particle beams – each beam having a bore measured in meters – fired back from every one of the SDF-3's forward heavy tri-barrel turrets. As before the _Judicator's_ shields flared, crackled and strained to repel as much of the incoming energy as possible unfortunately this time the SDF-3's gunners didn't let up their assault instead unleashing another hail of the powerful beams. With a brilliant electrostatic flash, the _Judicator's_ shields buckled allowing the full force of the particle beams to slam into the hull. Armour and hull metal vaporised instantly as the beams cut deep into the ship slicing through blaster resistant bulkheads and decks like they were made of tissue paper as they cut their way almost completely through the 103rd's flagship.

The beams vanished but the _Judicator's_ troubles were far from over. Even as venting atmosphere, debris and the bodies of dead and dying crewmembers flew into space through the deep gorges ripped in her hull a salvo of anti-ship missiles launched from the SDF-3 came in the smart seeker heads automatically homing in on the thermal blooms of the hull breaches. Missiles flew inside and detonated sending rippling waves of yet more destruction through the core of the star destroyer, the concussion waves of the explosions and the intense heat of the plasma warheads shattering and melting their way through the innards of the mighty Imperial battleship. Secondary explosions erupted further spreading the destruction as damaged systems and compromised magazines let go making the _Judicator_ buck left and right. Main power died and the great warship, normally such a potent symbol of the military might of the Empire, began to slowly tumble away helpless and out of control.

* * *

 **Bridge**

 **Imperial Star Destroyer Judicator**

"Damage report!"

The order from Captain Brandei, shouted as it was to be heard over the wailing of alert klaxons and damage warnings, roused Admiral Durril out of the semi-conscious state he'd been knocked into because of a sudden and violent collision with a bulkhead. Groaning he opened his eyes and looked up…

…into a scene from hell.

The normally bright and airy bridge of his flagship was in filled with a smouldering semi-darkness broken only by the dull red glow of emergency battery lights. Dense, acrid smoke filled the air with one of the very few upper level console banks burning merrily the young officer who had once manned it lying of the floor. The burns on his skin and the odd angle of his neck making it clear even from here that the young man was dead. A pair of astromech droids chose that moment to come trundling onto the bridge approach the burning console and begin fighting the fire with their onboard extinguishers.

Durril started picking himself up even as the crew responded to Captain Brandei's order for a damage report.

"Captain main power is out throughout the ship," damage control reported, "we are down to auxiliary power only. Hull ruptured on all forward upper decks, collateral damage in all sectors. Primary and secondary weapons arrays destroyed. There are electrical and plasma fires burning on all decks, were doing our best but I am not sure if we will be able to contain them for long."

"Hull integrity," Brandei asked even though he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.

"It's not good sir. We're reading massive damage and dangerous structural weakening in all forward sections of the ship," damage control replied grimly knowing that with the fires burning in so many sections of the ship, especially the superhot plasma fires which were certainly feeding off leaking tabana gas as well as cluzon-36 that was surely leaking out of ruptured fuel storage cells, that the structural weakening was only going to get worse. Durasteel was strong and could handle a lot of heat but even it had its limits.

"How long?" Durril asked exchanging a pained look with Brandei. Both knew that with the damage she'd sustained that the _Judicator_ was dying and would certainly soon begin breaking up.

"At the rate, the fires are progressing… no more than twenty minutes admiral," damage control reported.

"Captain begin preparations for an emergency evacuation," Durril ordered.

"Yes sir," Brandei answered immediately turning to a battered looking aide to begin organising the evacuation of all surviving personnel from the _Judicator_.

"Fleet status," Durril ordered.

"Admiral all our light cruisers are destroyed or disabled. The star destroyer _Vengeance_ is also disabled and currently undergoing evacuation," sensors reported grimly, "the star destroyer _Oath Sworn_ is still in the fight but she's badly damaged and will not survive much longer."

"We've lost so many so fast!" Durril exclaimed in shock and horror. While defeat was always a possibility in any battle to be beaten so soundly and so devastatingly quickly was unheard of. And he had the horrible suspicion that their opponents were holding back in some way that they could have easily destroyed his whole fleet if that were their desire. "What's the status of the enemy fleet?"

"Moderate damage only to some of their ships," sensors reported even as a violent shudder in the deck and a deep concussive rumbling told everyone onboard that something elsewhere in the ship had just exploded, "between those energy shields of theirs and whatever their armour is our weapons have inflicted only relatively small amounts of damage."

"Can we send a distress signal," Durril asked as another violent judder ran through the deck accompanied by the rumble of another internal explosion which this time was accompanied by a shriek of tearing metal. _She's beginning to break up,_ he thought in terror. He pushed down the sudden surge of panic that thought triggered as well as the scared animal that lived in the back of everyone's mind that was screaming 'get out of here before your killed.'

"Negative sir all long-range communications systems are inoperative."

"Do any of our ships still have hyperspace capability?" Durril asked inwardly cursing up a storm that they couldn't send a distress signal that would bring the nearest fleet running to their aide even though it would take a good few hours to arrive given the closest major fleet after his own – now mostly disabled or destroyed – command was Thrawn's Seventh Fleet currently orbiting Lothal.

"Yes, sir the _Oath Sworn_ and both our Interdictor cruisers still have hyperspace capabilities."

"Tell all three ships to withdraw," Durril ordered stumbling again as another internal explosion, once again accompanied by the shrieks of tearing metal, rattled through the ship clearly communicating that the _Judicator's_ death throes were beginning. "Tell them to make for Lothal so they can inform Grand Admiral Thrawn what has happened here."

"Yes sir."

"Admiral we're ready to begin the evacuation," Brandei reported coming up behind him.

"Very well," Durril replied walking back along the upper deck of the bridge to the command console where he pressed the button that sounded the alarm that he had hoped never to hear except in drills. The alarm that told the survivors of the _Judicator's_ crew that it was time to get to the escape pods and abandon ship. He started to turn back to look at his flag captain but before he could an ominous crackling, buzzing sound from the console caught his attention and he instinctively turned to look at it…

…there was a brilliant blast of light and a flash of intense, searing pain then everything went dark.

* * *

 **Bridge**

 **SDF-3 Pioneer**

 **That Same Time**

"Admiral the remaining operational Imperial ships are breaking away. Shall we continue firing upon them?"

"No let them go," Rick ordered from the command chair where he'd overseen this whole brief and entirely pointless battle. The Imperials had never truly been a threat to his fleet given he had them outnumbered two ships to one and apparently had them outgunned as well as their own weapons appeared to be far more powerful than the plasma based weapons the Imperials were using. Despite his gunner's best efforts to only hit weapons systems the battle had been a slaughter as the streams of supercharged, highly compressed protons fired by their cannons cut through those ships like they were made of paper. _I wonder if this is how Breetai felt all those years ago when our first gen ships challenged his fleet at the beginning of the First Robotech War,_ he thought gazing at the fleet of broken, burning ships on the holographic HUD.

He pushed aside the thoughts of how pointless and generally one sided this 'battle' had been. He had more immediate concerns. "Damage report," he ordered.

"We have some moderate damage to our forward armour layers," Lieutenant Richardson reported. "There have been several minor systems failures in the ships forward compartments due to electromagnetic spikes from some of the Imperial weapons. Nothing too serious. No additional casualties."

"What about the other ships?"

"All ships are reporting around the same sir," Richardson replied, "no casualties and no more serious damage than a few holes in their outer armour layers and some minor systems damage. But to be honest sir if this had gone on much longer the EM fluctuations from some of the Imperial weapons would have started to cause us some serious problems."

"Understood," Rick replied. "Lieutenant Pren where's the Horizon-T now?"

"They're just coming into dock now sir. Sir Janice reports that she has completed her translation of the star charts from the derelict," Pren reported, "she's offering to connect to the ships wi-fi network and upload them straight to the navigational computer."

"Tell her to do so," Rick instructed. "Flight ops recall all fighters, have them land immediately. Navigation as soon as you have the star charts plot a hyperspace fold jump to another system, preferably one that's quiet and out of the way."

"Aye sir receiving charts now. Beginning search," navigation answered. For a few moments silence reigned on the bridge as the officer carefully scanned the star charts and their encoded information for a potential safe harbour for the fleet to fold to. "Sir I think I've found somewhere an uninhabited system referred to as Hoth just over two kiloparsecs from here. According to the data there is only one world in the system with a breathable atmosphere and it's an ice cube cold enough to make the Siberian arctic look warm."

"Not ideal but it will do for now," Rick replied. "Pass the coordinates to the other ships."

"Aye sir. All ships acknowledge the coordinates and are standing by to fold."

"Are all our fighters docked now?"

"Yes, sir they are."

"Very well initiate hyperspace fold jump."

"Aye sir."

For a few moments, nothing happened then a faint whirr of power ran through the ship. Looking towards the viewports Rick saw the familiar gyroscopic ripple of energy form around the ship before transforming into the familiar frosted-glass effect of a fold sphere. Mere moments later the whirling ball of energy turned into streaking lines of stars as the battlefortress and its escorts submerged into hyperspace leaving behind the old clone wars battlefield and the wrecks of its newest inhabitants.

* * *

 **Author Notes: Well another chapter bites the dust. I hope everyone liked the confrontation between Rick's battlegroup and the 103rd task force, I know it was something of a curb stomp but that was always going to happen as the REF has better weapons than the Imperials do and they had them outnumbered two ships to one. I will admit though that I am not quite happy with the battle and how it turned out but nothing else I tried worked at all hence why the battle is written the way it is.**

 **If anyone is curious as to why the Imperial TIE pilots thought that there were three star destroyers in the REF fleet I would ask you to remember that at more than 1700 meters long the SDF-3 is larger than a standard Imperial-class star destroyer and the two 1200 meter long Tokugawa-class battleships that form part of her escort group are themselves ten meters longer than the old Venator-class star destroyers.**


	6. Chapter 6

_**A Left Turn at Albuquerque**_

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the characters that I am about to mangle around for my own amusement – sadly all Robotech and Star Wars characters remain the property of Harmony Gold, Disney and Lucasfilm Ltd respectively – I am merely borrowing them and make no profit from their use. As a result, please continue to keep the legal attack dogs, also known as lawyers, firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give to anyone.**

 **Author's Note: Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to working on this story, and on my other stories as well, but for the better part of the last two months we've been in the process of moving my parents out of their flat and back here into our family home. As a result, there has been a considerable degree of mayhem around here and I just haven't had the time or energy to do anything fanfiction related. Thankfully the move is now complete, and I can get back to working on my fics.**

* * *

 **Chapter Six**

 **Bridge**

 **Imperial Star Destroyer Judicator**

 **A Few Minutes Earlier**

It was with a very heavy heart that Captain Brandei watched as his superior officer walked over to the primary commander's console near the back of the bridge, preparing to sound the alarm that would tell the surviving crew of the _Judicator_ to proceed to the escape pods and abandon ship. Abruptly a deep, resonating shudder ran through the entire ship and sparks shot out of multiple conduits and junction boxes all around the bridge, the sharp hissing snaps of the blowing out electrical conduits mixing with the crackling of ever intensifying fires. The deck trembled again and this time he heard the distinct sounds of metal bending and tearing apart mixing with the concussive rumbles of more internal explosions.

It was the sound and feel of his command dying. Soon the _Judicator,_ once a mighty symbol of the peace and order the Empire had brought to the galaxy, would break up completely becoming another wreck drifting in a system that had already seen so much death and destruction during the Clone Wars. Something that, if Brandei was honest with himself, he was still having trouble wrapping his head around. Oh, being defeated in battle was always a possibility – it had happened to this very ship before after all though this time it was obvious that the _Judicator_ was mortally wounded instead of being merely disabled – that was not what he was honestly having difficulty coming to terms with.

It was that it happened so fast.

"Five minutes that's all it took," Brandei said softly to himself. Had he not experienced it he would have thought it impossible for a fleet of top of the line Imperial warships to be defeated so quickly, even if faced – as they had been – by superior numbers. There ships were, after all, the most technologically advanced war machines in the entire galaxy powerful enough that even one Imperial-class star destroyer could take on entire fleets of Clone Wars era warships and, between their massive arsenals of high-powered weapons and TIE fighter and bomber wings, tear them to pieces.

Only that hadn't happened.

Instead it had been them who'd been torn to pieces. Two things added insult to injury. First their own weapons hadn't seemed to do much if any real damage to the alien warships. There oddly mobile shields and armour taking all their firepower and only sustaining what appeared to be cosmetic damage at best, quite how that was possible he had no idea as there was no material in existence known to be able to withstand shots from capital grade heavy turbolasers. The other annoying thing was – unknowingly like his superior officer – he couldn't shake the feeling that the enemy had been attempting to hold back in some way that had they wanted to they could have reduced the entire fleet to vapours in moments.

 _Who are you?_ he thought as he looked out the bridge viewports at the alien fleet hanging there in space, seemingly ignoring them now that they were no longer a threat. _Where do you come from? How can your weapons be so powerful? Why'd you destroy the_ _Kimbala_ _and in the process made an enemy of the Galactic Empire? Are there more of you coming?_ That last thought gave him serious pause as he wondered if the twenty-two ships here could be the vanguard of an invasion force. It was a real possibility though it didn't explain why they'd boarded – and later seemingly deliberately destroyed – a derelict Republic-era star destroyer.

A cold tidal wave of horror abruptly swept over him as he suddenly realised what these unknowns, if they really were the vanguard of an invasion force, would have been after aboard the derelict ship. It was something that the Imperial Security Bureau would have never thought to remove from any of the ships they used in their little honey trap operations since every ship in the known galaxy – from the lowliest tramp freighter to the mightiest of star destroyers – had a copy kept in their navigational database but which would be invaluable to a hostile force unfamiliar with the wider galaxy.

A map of hyperspace routes.

The sudden wailing of the evacuation alarm jolted him out of his thoughts and back to the immediate problem. They needed to evacuate this ship before she came apart completely. They could only hope that the aliens, if they really were the vanguard of an invasion, didn't destroy or capture their escape pods after they launched. Knowing that he needed to see to his duty as the _Judicator's_ master and ensure the crew escaped before the ship blew he turned around…

…just as two things happened almost simultaneously. First there came another resonating shudder accompanied by a loud boom as something deep within the burning bowls of the ship exploded. Second the primary commanders console – with Admiral Durril right next to it – erupted first with sparks then flames before blowing apart completely. The fireball enveloping the admiral melting his uniform and burning his skin even as the concussion of the blast threw him away from the sudden conflagration. Before the unimaginable pain of the burns could provoke Durril's screams he impacted the opposite bulkhead where he slumped and lay motionless.

Brandei shook off the shock of what he'd just seen and raced over to his superiors – and honestly friends as they'd served together for years both during and after the Clone Wars – side. Squatting down he gazed upon Durril and honestly felt like being sick as he saw the tattered remains of the front of his uniform. The heat of the fire had burned much of it away but had melted the rest fusing it to his flesh, flesh that he could see was badly burned hell here and there he could see right through to the muscle underneath. Yet amazingly he was still alive if mercifully unconscious.

The sudden shriek of massive quantities of metal tearing simultaneously accompanied series of violent shudders in the deck and sprays of sparks from numerous conduits and consoles reminded him that they were running out of time to escape. He could feel it in the way the ship was shaking and in the sounds that _Judicator_ was entering her final death throes as some of her decks, badly weakened or completely consumed by the leaking tibana and clauzon-46 fuelled plasma fires, were beginning to collapse in upon themselves bringing structural bracing and hull fragments with them. Soon the progressing collapses would reach the main reactors hypermatter storage cells setting off an explosion that would completely vaporise what was left of the once proud warship.

A plastoid armour encased hand abruptly touched his shoulder. "Sir we have to go," one of the stormtroopers who guarded the entrance to the bridge said abruptly from behind him.

"I know," Brandei replied. "Help me with him."

"Yes sir," the trooper acknowledged.

Together with a combination of both urgency and tenderness, as neither wanted to make Durril's wounds even worse, the two of them picked up the unconscious admiral. Then they carried him out of the bridge to where the last of the command level escape pods were waiting for them. With as gentle a touch as they could they loaded the badly burned man into the pod and secured him as best as they were able. Brandei immediately went to the small control station at the front of the pod while behind him the stormtrooper first sealed the hatch then broke out an emergency aid kit and began doing what he could for Durril using the knowledge of field medicine that was included in all stormtrooper training.

"Brace yourself launching… now," Brandei ordered pulling the handle that triggered a simple battery-powered magnetic catapult that immediately hurled the pod clear of the dying star destroyer. And not a moment too soon as an explosion from the warship brushed the pod sending them spinning like a top. Cursing furiously under his breath he fought with the pods simple controls to bring the pod back under control before the spinning motion made them both space sick.

Finally, he succeeded and looked up. To find they were now facing the _Judicator_ and he felt his heart seize up as he beheld his command in the throes of death. Explosions and fires – feeding on leaking fuel and oxygen – were everywhere and the ship was clearly breaking up as city block sized chunks of the hull and superstructure were being thrown into space. The biggest explosion yet erupted just forward of amidships and the entire front third of the superstructure broke away from the rest of the blazing wreck. A brilliant whitish-blue light abruptly began to shine from the other half of the ship. Realizing what was about to happen Brandei hurriedly threw up an arm to shield his eyes…

…microseconds before the ruptured hypermatter-fuelled solar ionization reactor detonated. The explosion enveloping both halves of the hull and annihilating them in a storm of all consuming destruction that, for a moment out of time, seemed to rip the very structure of the space-time continuum apart. The brilliant flare of the blast faded and Brandei lowered his arm to see that the _Judicator_ was gone. Where she had once been there was now nothing but a sea of spreading, cooling plasma and a few torn, disintegrating fragments of hull most not much bigger than your average playing card.

Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. He turned his head to look, to see that the pod – no doubt propelled by the concussive force of the explosion – had drifted into the midst of the alien fleet. It was in fact drifting towards the largest of the three star destroyer sized ships in the middle of the fleet. From here he could clearly see the massive numbers of turrets – ranging in size from large rectangular and dome shaped turrets with two to three huge barrels per turret to hundreds of small single-barrel ball shaped turrets that seemed to be slung very low to the hull – lining the vessels flank not to mention a sizeable number of currently-closed launch bays.

Abruptly light flared and for a moment Brandei thought that the aliens had fired at the pod only to miss. Blinking away the after image he frowned when he saw that they had seemingly been enveloped by a whirling energy field that resembled a gyroscope of all things. _What in the Emperor's name,_ he thought a moment before the gyroscope turned into another type of energy that resembled a ball of frosted glass. Abruptly he began to feel more than a little weird, there was a strange feeling of tingling tension through his whole frame as if the organic matter that made up his body was being put under strain. His stomach abruptly felt like it was suddenly doing flipflops and the world seemed to both begin phasing in and out as well as distort with odd colours.

A filtered groan of discomfort from the stormtrooper behind him let him know that he was not the only one feeling so strange. _Ugh what the kriffing hell is happening,_ he thought as the feeling of tension and the optical distortions got worse. Moments later he was thrown back hard against the seat as the pod abruptly shook before pitching hard to port with such violence and suddenness that he was almost thrown out of the chair. The pod jerked back steady before violently pitching forward. Unable to stop himself Brandei was carried forward by the motion, there was a sudden flash of blinding pain as his forehead violently encountered the console…

…then he knew no more.

* * *

 **Hoth**

 **Hoth System**

 **Thirty Minutes Later**

Space above the frozen world of Hoth was, for one of the few times a year when the planets orbit around its parent star took it out of the firing lane of the systems extremely dense and chaotic asteroid belt, calm and quiet. Not that there was anyone here to notice as while technically habitable, and despite a strategic position along one of the Outer Rims busiest hyperspace routes, virtually nobody ever came to this ice bound planet. Thus, there was no one to notice when at twenty-two different points near the planets orbit points of space the size of quarks abruptly warped as the barrier between normal space and hyperspace abruptly came under attack from within.

In a space of time measured in fractions of seconds the space-time warps grew and intensified, sending out rippling waves of distorted gravity that made space itself seem to shiver with a heat haze like distortion. The folds of space-time parted and in the centre of each distortion field appeared a tiny ball of coruscating, eldritch light. The gravitational distortions began to fade as within the space of half a second each tiny sphere expanded into what would look to an outsider like a whirling ball of frosted glass, albeit frosted glass flickering and glowing with various exotic energies, up to fifteen kilometres in diameter. Within each sphere shapes began to appear, blurred and indistinct at first but rapidly becoming coherent and solid till with a gyroscopic flicker the spheres vanished.

The SDF-3 and her battlegroup had arrived in the Hoth system.

* * *

 **Bridge**

 **SDF-3**

"Defold operation complete, sir."

"Very good. Lieutenant Pren scan the area I want to know if there are any unforeseen surprises in this system," Admiral Rick Hunter ordered from the command chair.

"Aye sir."

At Lieutenant Pren's acknowledgement of his order Rick leaned back in the command chair. He hoped there wouldn't be any surprises in this system, as that would only lead to more drama and they had already had quite enough of that for one day. What they needed now was time, time to finish the repairs from all the damage the disastrous neutron-s missile test had inflicted upon their ships not to mention the strain getting catapulted into another galaxy had placed on the engines. Then they needed to sit down, get their bearings and start trying to figure out a way to get back home to the Milky Way – if such a way existed.

"Admiral our short-range scans have been completed. They indicate that a number of small metallic objects drifting between our ships," Lieutenant Pren reported. "They appear to be escape pods from some of the Imperial ships, they must have drifted close enough to us after the battle to become caught in our fold spheres."

Rick resisted, just, the impulse to groan. _There goes the rest of the day being quiet,_ he thought before snapping into action. "How many are there?" he asked. "And are we picking up any lifeform readings from them?"

"Four sir," Pren replied, "we are picking up lifeform readings from all the pods but most are pretty weak. My guess is they're either injured or unconscious or both." _Not surprising as getting caught too close to the event horizon of a fold sphere can be very bumpy,_ Rick thought knowing from experience the kind of turbulence you could experience if you were in a small ship and got caught just inside a fold sphere. Plus, any survivors on those pods would likely have injuries from the battle and the breaking up of their ships in the aftermath of their unintended destruction. Which reminded him he needed to have a word with the commander in charge of the gunnery control crews on drawing up new disabling settings for their standard anti-ship beam cannons as the current ones – designed as they were for use against highly durable robotech warships – were obviously still too powerful and killed the weaker ships the people of this galaxy seemed to use regardless of the gunner's intentions.

"Scramble a squadron of veritechs," Rick ordered turning back to the issue at hand. "Tell them to bring the pods aboard. Have medical personnel standing by, also tell Colonel Dante to have security teams standing by." After what happened the last time they'd brought an Imperial escape pod aboard he wasn't going to take chances that some trigger happy Imperial soldier killing one of the unarmed and unarmoured medical teams coming to help them.

"Aye sir," one of the other bridge crew acknowledged.

"Lieutenant Pren anything on our long-range scans?"

"Negative sir. Aside from the escape pods we appear to be all alone here."

 _We thought that in the other system too and look what happened there,_ he thought before deciding he didn't want to take any chances of someone else sneaking up on them. Especially as he fully intended to keep the fleet here for some time while they figured out what to do to get out of the predicament that they'd found themselves in. If they could get out of it that was as to the best of his knowledge nobody had ever had a hyperspace fold operation go this badly wrong before. But then most people didn't have to do emergency space folds to escape a fledgling black hole created by a weapons test going horribly wrong.

"Set the system to run continuous scans lieutenant," he ordered. "If we do have any more uninvited guests show up I want to know about it immediately. Lieutenant Englewood work with your counterparts on the other ships to ensure a continuous rotating CAP around the fleet."

"Aye sir," Lieutenants Pren and Englewood acknowledged from their respective stations. As the lieutenants set about their work Rick leaned back in the command chair again and found himself wishing, not for the first time, that he could go back to the simpler days when he'd just been a veritech pilot. Back then his only concern had been surviving his next mission while sending the enemy packing with combat boot printed backsides. He certainly hadn't had to worry about the things he was going to have to worry about now, such as how in God's name he was going to get the hundreds of thousands of people under his overall command in this fleet back home or at least find them somewhere safe where they could build a new colony if that turned out not to be possible.

A petite hand gently touching his right shoulder jolted him out of the melancholy thoughts on their predicament before they could begin praying on his mind. Looking over he found himself gazing up into an extremely familiar pair of emerald green eyes. The sympathetic look on Lisa's face telling him that she knew full well what was bothering him and that she was there to support him every step of the way regardless of the challenges they faced going forward. He felt a simple pull at his lips as he realized, once again, how much he really loved her. Reaching up he gently gave Lisa's hand a squeeze silently communicating how much he appreciated his beloved wife's support in all this.

The sudden bleep of the command station phone brought an end to the quiet moment. With a mental sigh of resignation Rick put the loving husband of a still beautiful – to him anyway – back in his box and became the admiral again. Lisa withdrew her hand and even from here he could see her shoulders – even covered as they were by the red and black robes of a member of the Sentinel Alliance Council – shaking with an odd combination of mirth and anger at their private moment being disturbed.

Pushing down his own irritation Rick picked up the phone and brought it to his ear. "Yes?" he asked.

"Exedore here, Admiral," Exedore replied and in the Zentraedi's voice Rick clearly heard notes of both puzzlement and concern. "We've made a few more interesting – and somewhat concerning – discoveries could you please come down."

"Of course, Exedore, I'll be right there," Rick answered knowing that Exedore would never summon him down to the lab sections again so soon after his last visit unless it was something of either great importance, great concern or both.

"Thank you, Admiral. We'll be waiting in secure lab three."

"Secure lab three. I'll see you there in a couple of minutes."

"Thank you, Admiral. Exedore out." The phone went dead in his hand and Rick put it back on the console cradle

"What did Exedore want," Lisa asked immediately.

"He needs me to come and see something probably relating to what they told me about just before that Imperial fleet appeared," Rick replied the look in his eyes telling Lisa that he would give her the full story later in the privacy of their quarters. "He sounded both puzzled and concerned on the phone just now."

Lisa frowned. "That doesn't sound good," she commented knowing from experience that Exedore was not by nature an alarmist. If he was concerned about something, then she knew it was potentially something extremely serious. "Mind if I accompany you?"

"No, it doesn't and not at all," Rick agreed as he stood up and moved away from the command station. "Lieutenant Pren call Captain Bintowski to the bridge, until he gets here you have the conn."

"Aye sir," Pren acknowledged.

"Shall we," Rick suggested to Lisa gesturing to the entrance to the bridge. Lisa smiled and nodded before slipping one arm through the loop that Rick promptly formed with his right arm. Then the two of them turned in unison and left the bridge, both wondering just what it was that Exedore had discovered now though both already realised that it probably wasn't good…

…not good at all.

* * *

 **Imperial Star Destroyer Chimera**

 **Lothal Orbit, Lothal System**

 **That Same Time**

Grand Admiral Thrawn accepted a data pad from one of the many junior officers passing through the bridge of his flagship with a polite nod of dismissal. As the younger Imperial walked away he began carefully reading the contents of the pad, and felt a slight smile appear on his face. The latest version of the TIE Defender the Elite was almost ready to begin the first phase of flight testing. Commander Skerris's report indicated that if everything went well with the stress tests on the latest improvements to the ion exhaust vectoring system then flight tests would be able to begin within a month.

And it was coming just in time especially as the threat of the rebellion hadn't gone away and was in fact beginning to grow now that the renegade Senator Mon Mothma was starting to unify the disparate cells into a potentially powerful alliance. Especially as not all the cells had lighter warships like the Phoenix Squadron and Massasi Group had had, but had some powerful ex-Separatist vessels like the Munificent-class star frigate and – if the intelligence reports were right – even a few Providence-class dreadnoughts. Ships that while weaker than a modern Imperial-class star destroyer individually, collectively gave the rebels a powerful striking force that could cause serious problems for your average Imperial garrison.

If that wasn't enough there was the new potential threat growing somewhere here in the Outer Rim that the Emperor himself had warned them about. A threat that could be far more dangerous to the Empire than the rebellion was. His majesty obviously hadn't been able to give many details on the nature of the threat, only that he knew that there was a new threat out here and that he wanted it identified and eliminated as soon as possible. Even finding this elusive threat would be a challenge given just how vast the Outer Rim territories were and how thinly spread the Imperial Fleet was out here.

"Grand Admiral," one of the crew abruptly called out from the work pits. Immediately Thrawn turned away from the holotable where he was standing and moved up onto the walkway between the pits. To see that the section of the pits that dealt with communications and sensors was suddenly turning into a beehive of activity.

"What is it?" Thrawn asked.

"Sir the star destroyer _Oath Sworn,_ and two Interdictor cruisers have just come out of hyperspace," the lieutenant commander who acted as the foreman for the work pit reported. "Comm scan indicates that the _Oath Sworn_ is very badly damaged. We are unable to establish communications with her however her automated distress beacons are active."

Thrawn couldn't help the look of surprise that flashed across his face at that piece of news. A star destroyer being so badly damaged that her only method of summoning aide was the emergency beacons was practically unheard of. And then there was the fact that the _Oath Sworn_ was supposedly attached to Admiral Durril's 103rd Task Force based on the opposite side of the Lothal Sector. What was she doing here a dozen parsecs from where she was supposed to be and how had she possibly come to be so badly damaged?

"Scramble medical ships and emergency crews," he ordered. "And relay the sensor scans of the _Oath Sworn_ to the main holotable. Also, alert Governor Pryce that we may have to send wounded down to Imperial Medical facilities in the Lothalan capital."

"Yes sir."

Leaving the lower ranked officer to his task Thrawn turned and walked back to the holotable just as a holographic image of the wounded star destroyer appeared. Despite his legendary coolness and self-control – a well cultivated trait of the Chiss – he couldn't stop himself emitting a slight gasp of shock and astonishment at the sight that greeted him.

The damage to the _Oath Sworn_ wasn't just bad it was catastrophic.

The star destroyer was listing badly to starboard indicating a near complete loss of attitude control. Great deep gashes had been ripped deep into the hull of the vessel, gashes that were both oddly long and from he saw had very smooth edges. In several places entire sections of the hull and superstructure were simply gone, not melted or reduced to be shattered ruins as would be the case if they'd been hit by heavy turbolaser bolts. It was like something had just disintegrated huge sections of the hull titanium reinforced durasteel armour simply being vaporised by whatever weapons had hit the ship. It was frankly a miracle that the ship hadn't come apart.

 _What could do damage like this to a star destroyer,_ Thrawn thought gazing upon the damage to the _Oath Sworn_. One thing he knew immediately though was whoever or whatever had done this they hadn't engaged the vessel with turbolasers but with something else, something new. He made a mental note to have the damage to the vessel examined more thoroughly as soon as any survivors were taken off the battered, half-destroyed star destroyer as a horrible suspicion was growing in his mind…

…a suspicion that whoever the new threat were they'd already begun striking against the Empire.

* * *

 **Authors Note: Well another chapter bites the dust, I know not a great deal happened in this chapter but it was important to the future direction of the story that the events seen here took place. Hopefully the next chapter will not take as long a time to come out as this one has it shouldn't as there is no major home moving around to do now. Until next time.**


	7. Chapter 7

_**A Left Turn at Albuquerque**_

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the characters that I am about to mangle around for my own amusement – sadly all Robotech and Star Wars characters remain the property of Harmony Gold, Disney and Lucasfilm Ltd respectively – I am merely borrowing them. As a result, please keep the legal attack dogs, also known as lawyers, firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give anyone.**

 **Authors Notes: Right before I begin this chapter I feel as though I need to remind everyone that the events of season four of Rebels have not actually taken place yet in the story timeline and indeed might not take place in the way shown in season four now. Some events might still occur as they've been shown while others will be very different to what was shown by Dave Filoni and the team at Lucasfilm. Most of the changes will be due to the very big butterflies being introduced with the arrival of the SDF-3 and her escorting battlegroup.**

 **Finally, the events of this chapter begin a few days after the end of Chapter Six as I felt that a time jump was necessary as there was not much more that I could do set in the immediate aftermath of the battle and the arrival of the crippled _Oath Sworn_ at Lothal. Certainly, there was not enough to really fill a decent length chapter. While I will periodically refer to unseen events they will be covered in flashback scenes. Now then without further ado lets get on with the story.**

* * *

 **Chapter Seven**

 **Imperial Star Destroyer Deceiver**

 **Three Days Later**

Standing before the bridge viewports of his current flagship Grand Moff Tarkin gazed with well hidden disbelief at the sad remains of Admiral Durril's task force. When Thrawn had contacted him to inform him of the battle that had taken place here, in a nameless system that he'd already seen quite enough of during the Clone Wars, he hadn't truly believed him. Still he trusted the Chiss enough to come and investigate himself. Now the _Deceiver_ stood alongside Thrawn's flagship _Chimera_ and two other star destroyers gazing upon the sight of a truly disastrous battle.

One that he was still having trouble wrapping his head around.

The 103rd had been a large task force, one powerful enough to pacify an entire sector of space without difficulty, the very idea that they could be so utterly defeated by someone in just _five minutes_ of combat was ludicrous. Yet before him was all the evidence he needed that it had indeed happened. As floating high above the plane of the elliptic, and far outside the old debris field that Yularen's ISB had turned into one of its truly fiendish honey traps, was the few remains of the fleet. Most of the remains were little more the plumes of gas and debris – the largest such field belonging to what had been the _Judicator_ which, according to survivors fished out of some of the life pods that had been floating in the area when they'd arrived, had not only _broken in half_ from the damage she sustained but subsequently exploded when the solar ionization reactor ruptured – though a few were somewhat intact. Somewhat in the fact that all the ships were blackened and drifting in the entire silence and stillness of death, all seriously damaged.

And what that damage – like the damage to the _Oath Sworn_ which was now orbiting Lothal as Governor Pryce personally oversaw the evacuation and care of the wounded surviving crew as well as the salvaging of data from the mortally wounded vessels computer core – revealed was terrifying. Whatever the unknown blue beam weapons were they'd either ripped right through the shields on their ships as if they didn't exist or depleted the shields so quickly that they might as well have not been there at all. Then they'd sliced through armoured hulls with ease, the best armour Imperial shipwrights could provide offering no protection at all. It all served to convince him that whoever the unknowns were, it was clear that they were a grave threat to the stability of the Empire – especially if they found there way into the arms of that coalition of criminals, malcontents and idealistic fools who now called themselves the Rebel Alliance. The immense firepower that they seemingly had – not to mention that three of there ships were clearly their version of star destroyers and thus certainly had sizeable armies and all the equipment they'd need aboard them – would turn the rebel scum from an annoying pest into a serious threat to the future stability of the Empire.

Mentally he swore he would do anything and everything to prevent that nightmare scenario from coming to pass. Which prompted him to make a mental note to set a new fire under Director Krennic to get Project: Stardust back on track as the trumped-up administrators excuses for the seemingly endless delays with the completion of the battle station were becoming extremely tiresome. Not to mention that they made time an ally of the rebellion and now whoever, or whatever, these mysterious new antagonists were.

The sound of footsteps behind him brought him out of his thoughts. He turned in place to see a lieutenant approaching. "Yes," he asked.

"Sir we've recovered the last of the escape pods and our salvage droids have been able to retrieve the combat data recorder from the wreckage of the _Vengeance_ ," the lieutenant reported. "We have also taken a number of debris samples for an in-depth analysis."

"Then we have done all that we can here," Tarkin said. "As soon as all the salvage droids are back aboard have all ships set course back to Lothal. I wish to interview the captains of the two Interdictor cruisers that escaped the battle with the _Oath Sworn_."

"Yes sir."

"But before we leave have all ships target and destroy the remains of our ships," Tarkin ordered as he didn't want to leave anything here that the Rebels could possibly recover that could be either used directly against the Empire – like fighter and capital grade proton torpedoes, tibana gas cartridges or concussion missiles – or could lead them to learning more about the powerful, seemingly extremely hostile to the Empire, newcomers than they almost certainly already knew. He was already aware that the rebellion had spies and informants everywhere, sometimes in the most unlikely of places like the ISB – which he knew was still reeling from the defection of Alexandr Kallus, previously one of their best agents, to the rebellion.

"Yes sir," the lieutenant acknowledged. Satisfied that the younger officer would follow his commands Tarkin turned back to the viewports to watch.

For several more minutes nothing happened, beyond the salvage droids returning to the docking bays being visible against the starscape as moving points of light. Then with surprising suddenness the emerald green javelins of heavy turbolaser bolts and blue balls of proton torpedoes lanced out towards the wrecks that had just three days earlier been top of the line ships in service to the Emperor. For minute after minute the bolts and torpedoes shot forth from the four star destroyers pounding the wrecks first into chunks, then semi-molten shrapnel and finally into plumes of incandescent plasma and dust. Seconds later the torrents of destruction pouring out of the star destroyers ceased as they simply had nothing left to destroy.

Tarkin allowed himself a small smile as he beheld the spreading plasma clouds. The rebels if they came here would now have no chance of learning anything from the remains of the 103rd task force. He watched for a few more moments as the assembled star destroyers changed formation into standard transit formation with the _Deceiver_ and _Chimera_ at their head. Then the viewport filled with star lines as the fleet launched itself away from the scene of Imperial defeat at hyper speed.

* * *

 **The Ghost**

 **Dagobah System**

 **That Same Time**

"What a mudhole."

Zeb's words hung pregnant in the air of the _Ghost's_ cockpit as, after three days of continuous hyperspace travel, the heavily modified VCX-100 light freighter settled into orbit over Dagobah. Sitting in her familiar pilot's chair Hera Syndulla couldn't help but nod in agreement as her instruments probed the planet below, a planet that even from here did not look that inviting being swathed in thick clouds with what little surface was visible being a very unappealing shade of dark-green.

The readout from the sensors was not much better.

According to their scans the entire surface of the planet was basically one giant swamp. There were no oceans or other large bodies of open water only some small lakes and wide rivers some of which circumnavigated the entire planet. While the planet had an oxy-nitrogen atmosphere compatible with most lifeforms it was hot and thick with dangerously high levels of water vapour. Not to mention heavily charged with electromagnetic energy from the monstrously huge thunderstorms, the interference being so great that she had no doubt that the _Ghost's_ sensors would be effectively blind should they enter the atmosphere. All in all, it looked like a very unpleasant planet, which was probably what made it the most suitable location for the hiding place of the last Jedi Grand Master.

"I agree it doesn't look at all pleasant," Hera said aloud even as she heard the doors to the cockpit open. "But I suppose that, along with its relative isolation, is what made this place such a good hiding place for Master Yoda."

"That was certainly part of it but there is more to it than that Hera," Kanan replied making her jump slightly and look over to see her crews two resident Jedi coming into the cockpit with Rex following along a few paces behind them. "This planet is extremely strong in the Force, unusually so actually."

"Why would that matter," Zeb asked not for the first time not really understanding the whole Force thing that Kanan and Ezra could use. Oh, he believed in it, the mission that had saw them rediscover Lyra-San the ancient original homeworld of his people had really made sure of that, but that did not mean he truly understood it. But then he doubted there was anyone who wasn't a Force sensitive who had even the vaguest understanding of the Force.

"Because it would effectively mask Master Yoda's force signature from detection by the likes of Vader and his Inquisitors," Kanan replied. "Unless they were literally right on top of him, which would not be a good place for any darksider to be," behind him he heard Rex snigger slightly at the comment as the old clone knew how true that was as any darksider encounter with Master Yoda was likely to be short and for the darksider very terminal, "they would not know he was there."

"Getting lost in the background noise of the planet," Hera commented.

"Something like that," Kanan replied.

"So now what do we do Kanan," Hera asked. "Given how much electromagnetic interference there will be in the atmosphere I don't really want to risk taking the _Ghost_ down into the atmosphere."

"We take the _Phantom II_ down," Kanan replied.

Zeb frowned. "But wouldn't the _Phantom's_ sensors be blinded as well," he asked.

"They would be, but they won't be needed, not if Ezra pilots it," Kanan answered with a nod to his apprentice. Unsaid was the fact that the Force would be all the blue-haired padawan would need to land the shuttle close to Master Yoda's location.

Hera scowled slightly as she clearly heard and understood the unspoken message from her lover, her pilots pride a little stung by the implication that if she attempted to take their auxiliary craft down herself they wouldn't find Master Yoda but would be in for one of her rare crashes or as she preferred to think of them very exciting landings. After a moment she stuffed the offended pilot back into her mental box as she knew Kanan had not been deliberately offensive he had just been stating a fact. Since Kanan couldn't really fly a powered craft these days, though she was sure if the Jedi Knight really put his mind to it he would be able to, Ezra being the only other trained Force user on the crew was the logical choice to pilot the _Phantom II_ down to the planet.

"Alright," she said coming to a decision. "Ezra you and Kanan will take the _Phantom_ down to the planet. The rest of us will remain here in orbit."

"Alright Hera," Ezra agreed fighting down his nerves at the thought of flying the _Phantom_ first to the surface and then back. While he had become quite a good pilot in the last few years, Hera with her combination of firmness and patience was an excellent flight instructor, he was still a little unsure about flying the _Phantom II_ nervous in away that he wasn't flying the _Gauntlet_ or any of the rebellions star fighters. He knew that it had everything to do with the fact that the original _Phantom_ had been lost while on a mission that had been under his command.

"How long is this going to take," Zeb asked as the Spectre's resident master-padawan pair started to leave the cockpit. He really didn't like being here and couldn't wait to get back to Yavin IV where he would be able to stretch his legs as the confines of the _Ghost_ could get claustrophobic after awhile especially to a species like his that had evolved on the vast open grasslands of Lyra-San.

"It will take as long as it needs to," Kanan replied before the doors closed behind his and Ezra's backs.

"Ugh I hate it when he gives an answer like that," Zeb moaned giving an irritated glare at the door and the Jedi who'd just disappeared through it. "It's just so… so…"

"Jedi," Rex offered with a smile understanding exactly where the former Lasat honour guard was coming from. He and his brothers had been there many times during the Clone Wars, especially during the first months of the war when they'd still been learning how exactly to work with the Jedi. Though that hadn't stopped it being a sometimes very maddening experience.

"Exactly."

"You get used to it."

* * *

Ezra felt like there were lothcats doing a mating dance in his stomach as he carefully guided the _Phantom II_ out of its berth on the back of the _Ghost_ and brought it around to face the planet. He knew why he was nervous, it was both the fact that he was piloting this ship – as he was aware of what a certain matronly Twi'lek would likely do to him if the worst happened and he lost another _Phantom_ prompting an inward shudder as he would rather fight Darth Vader all by himself than face a ticked off Hera Syndulla – and the fact that he would soon be meeting Master Yoda in the flesh instead of as a Force vision. Gazing out the windscreen he saw the great grey curve of Dagobah's storm wracked atmosphere below them.

"Relax," Kanan said from behind him easily sensing his students nerves through their bond. "Clear your thoughts and let the Force guide you."

Though he knew Kanan wouldn't see it Ezra nodded. Closing his eyes for a moment he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, releasing his feelings of nervousness into the Force as he'd been taught before letting it embrace him and show him the path. Opening his eyes, he saw a faint ribbon of light – which he knew wasn't there as it was simply a visual representation of what the Force was showing him and one that only he would be able to see – detailing the course he would have to reach the surface of the planet safely. Without hesitation he brought the engines out of idle and began following the course.

A few moments later the _Phantom II_ began travelling down through the atmosphere of Dagobah, the outermost bands of the atmosphere being calm and quiet as such things usually tended to be. Though as they descended lower the small shuttle began to be violently buffeted by first the high-altitude winds common to practically every terrestrial planet in the galaxy and then by the winds swirling around the numberless storms rampaging through Dagobah's lower atmosphere. Chop warnings immediately went off and all the console sensors instantly clouded with electrical and electromagnetic interference.

Ezra ignored them as, guided by the Force, his hands remained rocksteady on the controls.

Within seconds the _Phantom_ broke through the cloud layer and Ezra levelled the descent so the former Separatist shuttle glided over the tops of the trees. Treetops that were swaying rapidly in all directions from the strength of the wind and the torrential rain that was currently drowning this part of the planet. Ezra did his best to keep the shuttle steady as he continued following the course the Force was giving him to follow to Master Yoda.

Seconds later they entered what had to be the eye of the storm as the wind and rain vanished abruptly. The course from the Force moved down and he reduced speed to follow until he was hovering over a spit of moss and creeper covered land that projected out into a swamp. A flick of a switch extended the landing struts and after a moment green lights flashed on to confirm they were down and locked. A final flick of the switches turned off the engines and repulsor lifts.

No sooner than he finished securing the ship than Ezra abruptly felt a presence approaching. It was an immense presence, one that radiated power, wisdom, kindness, age and the very essence of the light side of the Force. "Is that…" he started to say as he had no idea what Master Yoda's force signature felt like as he couldn't feel it whenever they were in that strange starry void place.

"It is," Kanan confirmed standing up, having spent the first fourteen years of his life ensconced within the confines of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant he was intimately familiar with what Master Yoda presence felt like as like all the younglings of that now gone era he'd been taught by the ancient Jedi in the past. Even after all this time he still remembered what he felt like, just like he still remembered what his own late master felt like. "We should go out and meet him."

"Yes master," Ezra agreed standing up from the pilot's seat – but not before hitting the controls to unseal and open the doors at the back of the shuttle. With a hiss of hydraulics, the doors opened letting the hot and muggy atmosphere of Dagobah spill into interior of the _Phantom_ bringing with it a cornucopia of smells none of which were entirely pleasant. _Sheesh and I thought Lothal's monsoon season could be bad,_ he thought as the cloying wave of heat and humidity washed over him immediately making him feel sticky and uncomfortable. With a small amount of effort, he released his instant discomfort into the Force allowing him to keep a clear head.

Without talking, they did not need to, both Kanan and Ezra stepped out of the _Phantom_ and set foot on the damp surface of Dagobah to wait. They did not have to wait long as emerging from the steaming swampy forest opposite them came a tiny robed figure using a glimmer stick as a walking aide. A small bag floated along behind him held up by the ancient Jedi Masters formidable telekinetic talents.

Ezra focused on his bond with his master. _"Kanan has Master Yoda always walked like that,"_ he asked telepathically.

" _He has at least for as long as I can remember,"_ Kanan replied, _"back in the temple he was also known to use a small repulsor chair to get around. According to the teachers back then Master Yoda has difficulty using his legs due to an overreliance on using form four in combat during his centuries as a Knight."_

Ezra nodded in understanding. Being a practitioner of form four, or Ataru, himself he understood it was an extremely acrobatic and fast paced form of lightsabre combat. Even with the natural enhancement the Force gave the body of anyone who could channel it he frequently felt his muscles burning with fatigue, not to mention the mental exhaustion from the employment of his other Force abilities especially telekinesis that were part and parcel of the form, at the end of a prolonged battle. He could only imagine the strain centuries of using Ataru would put on the body of one of its practitioners.

He was brought out of his reflection when Master Yoda reached them, despite his age and awkward, pained gate the Grand Master could still move fast when he wanted to. "Greetings I bid you," he said in his somewhat high voice. "Pleased you came so soon am I. Moving fast now events are, little time do we have. Growing the disturbance in the Force is."

"We've felt it too Master," Kanan replied exchanging a look with Ezra. It was kind of impossible to notice that the disturbance in the Force was growing in intensity, that the paths of destiny and fate had been completely ripped apart by whatever was causing it. It was obvious every time that they meditated that the Force was in greater flux than Kanan personally could ever recall it being, not even in the Clone Wars had the Force been in such turmoil. Not to mention he knew that fragmentary variations of the vision he'd told them about earlier had been flashing through Ezra's dreams every night for the last three nights.

"Whatever is causing it I wish it'd stop," Ezra said plaintively. "Then maybe I could have a quiet night for once."

"Causing you to have visions in dreams is the distortion padawan," Yoda asked gently. At Ezra's nod of affirmation, he blinked slightly in surprise as he had not anticipated that Ezra would have such dreams. "Happened before has this?"

"Sometimes master," Ezra replied not feeling anything about admitting he sometimes, quite frequently, had dreams that sometimes turned out to be visions. Kanan was aware of the fact and had done his best to help him figure out what dream was just a dream and what was a vision. "But I cannot always tell if what I dream is a vision or just that a dream."

"Hmm strong your foresight abilities are," Yoda mused aloud. "but not properly trained in the skill are you or know which you would. Hmm work with you to master this talent I will if object your master does not."

"Not at all master," Kanan replied as he was well aware that when it came to visions his own training in that area was mostly academic as while he did sometimes get visions himself – all Jedi did at some point – they were very infrequent – as was the case with most Jedi – and as such Master Billaba had seen no reason to really train him in the skills to interpret them in other than a basic fashion. In fact, he remembered well that if a padawan did show predisposition to the strong and detailed visions that Ezra got on a somewhat regular basis then Master Yoda would give them special classes in the skill in between missions.

"Now return to your ship let us," Yoda said after a pleased smile teased his old face both at Kanan's acceptance of his offer of assistance in training his padawan and at the thought of passing on his knowledge to the first of a new generation of Jedi.

"This way Master," Kanan replied before turning and heading back into the shuttle. Ezra followed immediately and without being bid went straight back into the pilot's seat and started to prepare for the flight back to the _Ghost_. He both heard and felt Master Yoda hobble his way aboard and use the Force to lift himself into one of the seats. Sensing that Kanan was aboard and settled as well he remotely closed the hatch and brought the engines out of standby.

Moments later they were airborne.

* * *

 **Rebel Command**

 **Rebel Alliance Headquarters**

 **Yavin Four, That Same Time**

Senator Mon Mothma frowned slightly as she listened to the hologram of the current leader of the rebel cell on Lothal, former Republic governor Ryder Azati. Ryder was currently detailing what some of his contacts in the capital city were reporting, something that she had to admit would be of great interest to the rebellion. Three days earlier the star destroyer _Oath Sworn_ , which according to their intelligence was part of the 103rd task force under Admiral Durril, had arrived in orbit of Lothal badly damaged and in the company of two Interdictor cruisers that had also been assigned to Durril's force.

"It has taken us this long to learn anything but from what our contacts in the main Imperial medical centre report that they've overheard debriefings of the less wounded survivors by Pryce," Ryder was saying, "apparently the 103rd task force was deployed to system M-77677 in response to an Imperial beacon signal of some kind."

"System M-77677 there is an ISB honey trap in that system," former ISB agent Alexandr Kallus commented from the other side of the holotable. Mon Mothma nodded as the rebellion was aware of the little honey traps that the Imperial Security Bureau had turned several the old Clone Wars battlefields into, hoping to entice smugglers and rebels into their clutches with promises of looting weapons and valuable components from the wreckage of numerous Republic and CIS vessels.

"From what my operatives have gathered the Imperials encountered a fleet of unknown warships there. A battle resulted in which the entire 103rd task force was defeated in just five minutes of combat with no notable damage being inflicted upon the alien ships," Ryder reported.

"Five minutes," exclaimed everyone around the table shocked. With those who were fully aware of the capabilities of Imperial warships like Kallus, General Draven and Admiral Raddus all exchanging looks of shock, awe and concern.

"Is this confirmed," Admiral Raddus asked.

"It is as far as I know," Ryder replied, "we have been able to get some visual scans of the _Oath Sworn_ and it is shocking."

"Can you show us," Raddus asked. Ryder nodded and pressed a control on his side causing his hologram to vanish and be replaced by a holographic image of the _Oath Sworn_. Like everyone else Mon Mothma couldn't help but gasp in shock at the sight that they beheld. The star destroyer really looked like it had been through a war with numerous deep wounds sliced into her hull, armour and hull metal having been completely vaporised by something of indescribable power. They could even see right through the ship in some places.

"Odd damage," Raddus commented as he pressed some controls to zoom in on what he'd spotted. The hologram immediately zoomed in on one side of the star destroyer where normally rows of heavy quad turbolaser turrets would be located. But now however they were gone instead where the turrets had been there was now nothing but a deep perfectly straight breach in the hull, the edges of the breach having a very odd smooth look with none of the ripped and burned look of turbolaser inflicted damage.

"That looks almost like the damage from a lightsabre," Kallus commented as lightsabre inflicted damage was something he'd become very familiar with during his last few years in the ISB and been put up against the _Ghost_ crew. Both Kanan and Ezra had displayed a very nasty habit of slicing their way through doors and bulkheads with their sabres, not to mention their habit of slicing blaster rifles in half usually before they telekinetically slammed some poor stormtrooper hard into the nearest wall or bulkhead.

"Similar but look at it there is no evidence of molten metal being left behind in the way a lightsabre does when it cuts through things as it is after all primarily a plasma blade," Draven added. "Instead it looks like the metal was just disintegrated by whatever it was that hit the ship. I have no idea what kind of weapon could do that."

"Nor do I," Raddus agreed.

"I wonder," Kallus mused, "could these newcomers have something to do with the distortion in the Force that not only knocked our Jedi nearly senseless but has prompted Master Yoda himself to come out of hiding and join us."

"Master Yoda is still alive," Ryder exclaimed as his hologram reappeared then he shook his head. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Kanan survived Order 66 after all. What do you wish me to do now?"

"Keep monitoring the situation with the _Oath Sworn_ as much as you can Ryder," Mon ordered. "Keep us as up to date as possible."

"Of course, Senator," Ryder replied before fading out of existence as he closed the channel from his end.

"This is an interesting development," she commented. "Opinions?"

"One thing is clear," Admiral Raddus replied, "it is that whoever the newcomers are, they are obviously both extremely powerful and likely technologically superior to both ourselves and the Empire. It would certainly explain how they could defeat an Imperial fleet as powerful as the hundred and third task force in just five minutes of open combat but seemingly take no damage themselves. We need to know more about them, they could potentially be a great ally for us or a greater threat than the Empire."

"We need to know either way," Draven agreed.

"I agree," Mon added after a moment as she weighed the options open to her and made a decision. "Summon the other members of the Council here to Yavin to discuss this event. In the meantime, General Draven, I want you to alert your operatives and have them begin finding anything and everything they can about these newcomers. I also want our analysts to go over that hologram with a fine-tooth comb see what, if any, other details about the newcomers that the wreck of the _Oath Sworn_ can reveal. Also advise General Syndulla of this development – they should have reached Dagobah by now – maybe Master Yoda will have some thoughts on it. Dismissed."

As her gathered subordinates moved away to attend to their given tasks and duties Mon mused on this intriguing new development. While she remained hopeful that the conflict with the Empire could be resolved diplomatically she was also realistic enough to know that wasn't very likely especially given that Palpatine was really Darth Sidious Dark Master of the Sith – Bail had told her that years ago – and thus would be very unwilling to give up the near-absolute power he now had. Which meant that, as distasteful as the prospect was, another galaxy wide war was likely going to be needed to depose the tyranny of the human-centric Empire and return the galaxy to the peace, equality and justice of the Republic. The newcomers, whoever or whatever they were, could possibly be – if they could convince them to back their just cause – a key component in winning that war sooner rather than later and thus limiting the price in blood and pain that the galaxy was likely to face in the war to come.

After a moment more thinking about it Mon sighed softly to herself. She didn't know what the future held, that was the Jedi's thing, but she knew one thing because of the conversation and the revelation of the newcomers.

Everything could be about to change.

* * *

 **Authors Note: Well another chapter bites the dust. I know not a lot happened in this chapter, nor did the REF appear, but that could not be avoided as this chapter was always going to be more about reactions to what happened to the 103rd task force and to beginning setting up events for later in the story. As for Rick and co they'll be appearing in the next chapter I promise. Hopefully it won't take me so long to do the next update but as always I cannot promise anything.**


	8. Chapter 8

_**A Left Turn at Albuquerque**_

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the characters that I am about to mangle around for my own amusement – sadly all Star Wars and Robotech characters remain the property of Disney, Lucasfilm Ltd and Harmony Gold respectively – I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit from their use. As a result, please keep the legal attack dogs – also known as lawyers – firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give to anybody.**

* * *

 **Chapter Eight**

 **SDF-3 Pionee**

 **Orbiting Hoth**

 **An Hour Earlier**

Sitting in the quiet of his ready room Admiral Rick Hunter smiled as he read the latest fleet status report from engineering. The last of the damage the fleet had sustained from first the disastrous neutron-s missile test, Imperial warships had been repaired. Once again all twenty-two ships of the SDF-3's battlegroup had been pronounced fully operational and thus ready to face the challenges and the dangers that this galaxy they'd been hurled into presented them with.

It was the first bit of truly good news that he'd been given in the last three days.

With a sigh Rick closed the file in question and opened another file this time one from the security section. Colonel Dante reported that, using the memory scanning technology they'd inherited from the vanquished Robotech Masters, they'd been carefully probing the memories of the handful of Imperial prisoners that they had in their brig. In accordance with his orders they'd been seeking not just general information about this galaxy in which they'd found themselves and more information on the seemingly quite hostile to them Galactic Empire which seemed to be the current dominant power.

The probing of most hadn't revealed much as most of their prisoners were little more than poorly trained grunts who could barely aim and fire the plasma blaster rifles they were issued with and knew nothing of the wider galaxy being conditioned to obey the orders of their superiors without thought or question. The one of the two officers they had prisoner – a Captain Brandei as the latter an Admiral Durril was still floating in a regen tank undergoing treatment for serious burns to his torso, throat and lungs – they'd probed so far had been more informative of the state of the galaxy. Opening the attached file Rick began to read first the summary then the more in-depth account of Brandei's probing.

It was not good reading.

The Galactic Empire was a harsh totalitarian regime that like most authoritarian regimes throughout history ruled the worlds under its jurisdiction with an iron fist. Almost all the rites of the people were restricted with the governments of each planet either dominated by pro-Empire politicians or replaced entirely by an Imperial appointed planetary governor. In both instances the rule of the Empire was enforced by the military which harshly clamped down upon any dissention arresting and imprisoning anyone who dared to even question the actions of the Imperial regime. And if anyone actually stood up to them they could be summarily executed.

As if that wasn't bad enough there was the protocol base delta zero which, according to Brandei's memories, involved a massive orbital bombardment of a planet if it stood up the Imperial regime and could not be captured by conventional military means. Under base delta zero a fleet of Imperial warships would move into orbit of the target planet and just start blasting away with their plasma-particle weapons. Under the protocol they would ignore all attempts to surrender by the people of the planet they were bombarding, would shoot down any ships that attempted to escape and would not stop firing until the planet was reduced to a ball of molten glass. A process that, due to the limitations of this galaxies weapons technology, could take hours or even days. Brandei knew of at least three instances in the last decade where the Empire had subjected a planet and a people to just that kind of bombardment.

Just thinking about it made Rick feel more than a little sick and brought back uncomfortable memories of the Rain of Death. Though he did console himself somewhat with the knowledge that most of the billions who died in the Rain would not have even known what was happening, their bodies being vaporised instantly by the reflex beams and particle beams raining down from Dolza's fleet. Certainly, there would be none of the sheer terror of a base delta zero bombardment given the hybrid plasma-particle bolts fired from the Imperial warships would lose considerable power and cohesion during their flight from the muzzle of the cannon firing them to the surface of the planet. As a result, there would be no cities or towns being vaporised in milliseconds as there had been during the Rain of Death but a slow levelling similar to the great air borne bombardments of cities during the Second World War and like with a few of those bombardments firestorms would likely result.

Forcing himself to read on Rick wasn't surprised to learn that there was a growing rebellion against the cruel rule of the Empire. Various rebel groups had emerged and formed together into the Rebel Alliance and publicly committed themselves to bringing down the Empire and restoring its precursor state. Something called the Republic. He wished them luck as they were going to need it.

Closing the report Rick sighed again before opening another report. This one was from astronavigation who'd completed their analysis of this system. It also wasn't the best of reports as it confirmed that not only was the planet below so cold it would make Siberia in the depths of winter seem like the Bahamas but that it was regularly hit by asteroids and meteorites. Apparently, this system asteroid belt was both unusually energetic and unstable so instead of drifting sedately along on predictable orbits – like most asteroid fields did – the rocks that made up this system asteroid field were not only fast moving but moved in erratic and completely unpredictable ways. Plus, the data from the star charts recovered from the derelict Republic vessel clearly showed that while the Hoth system was uninhabited its neighbouring system wasn't being home to a tibana gas mining colony on a gas giant planet called Bespin.

Taken together all three findings confirmed something that he'd suspected would be the case from the moment they defolded in this system and found themselves orbiting a giant snowball in space. The fleet could not stay here, the longer they stayed the greater the chances were that someone on the way to the tibana gas mine would stumble across them. They needed to check the star maps again and find somewhere else, somewhere even more remote than Hoth.

With a sigh of resignation Rick made his decision on what to do and tapped the comm unit on the desk. "Hunter to bridge," he said.

"Pren here sir," Lieutenant Pren answered immediately making Rick recall it was the young woman's turn to be the officer of the watch.

"Lieutenant start scanning the star charts we recovered three days ago. I want you to find three systems that are not only remote but uninhabited," he ordered. "Once you have the coordinates dispatch a ship from the escort squadron to each system to survey and report."

"Aye sir I'll get straight on it."

"Excellent lieutenant. Hunter out."

After signing off with the bridge Rick stood up and moved over to where the coffee machine sat invitingly on a table on the opposite side of the ready room. Lisa had made sure that it was filled up before she'd retired to their quarters where she could lay down for a while as one of the legacies of the severe injuries she'd sustained during Edwards coup was quite serious arthritis in both legs. It was one of the factors that had seen here ultimately decide to leave the military – after briefly returning to duty for the final battle with Edwards and his renegade Grey Squadron on and over the former Invid homeworld of Optera – and take up a more supporting role for the REF with the Sentinels.

After making himself a much-needed coffee he returned to his desk. He was just taking a sip of the blessed black liquid when his door hailer went off. _Now what,_ he thought as he swallowed the mouthful of hot liquid before putting the mug down. "Come in," he called out guessing that whatever the issue was it would be a serious one as nobody would disturb him if it wasn't.

He was proven correct when the door slid open and Exedore came in with a grave look on his face.

"Yes, Exedore what is it?" Rick asked.

"Admiral my team has completed our sweep of all the ships in the fleet," Exedore replied formally.

"And is it as extensive as we suspected," Rick asked already knowing what Exedore was talking about. He cast his mind back to when Exedore had first brought the issue to his and Lisa's attention.

* * *

 _Rick was puzzled as, accompanied by Lisa, he returned to the lab section barely half an hour after he'd left it to walk right into the confrontation with the Imperial warships. Walking into the main lab he found Exedore right where he had expected him to be._

" _You wished to see me, Exedore?" he asked._

" _Ah good admiral you are here and yes I did. You remember the unknown microbes I showed you earlier?"_

" _The ones in the Imperial hull fragments, floating in the tibana gas and in the blood of our guests?" At the micronized Zentraedi's nod he continued. "What about them? Have you found more of them?"_

" _Unfortunately, yes I have but I found them in a place where they should not be… aboard this ship."_

" _Here! Where the hell did they come from?" Rick asked even as Lisa looked at them curiously. He took a moment to quickly explain about the microbes to Lisa._

" _That I do not know though the initial microbe colonies were detected near the protoculture matrix. Initially I just thought they were attracted to its energy emissions – such things have happened before after all – but when I looked in areas away from the matrix I found more of them."_

" _Where are they coming from?"_

" _I do not know but I found them in the ventilation system and in water taken from one of the taps in the nearest restroom. I have ordered samples taken from other locations on the ship, but I have no doubt that we will find more of these microbes."_

" _Could they be on our other ships as well," Lisa asked just beating Rick to the punch._

" _I do not know but I would not be surprised if they were."_

" _We need to find out and from there try to determine if these things are in some way a threat to us, especially given their low level psionic energy emissions," Rick said thoughtfully. "Exedore I want you to put together a team and begin sweeping every ship, plane and piece of equipment that we have for these microbes. Also see if you can figure out exactly where they are coming from and possibly how we could get rid of them."_

" _I will begin at once."_

* * *

Rick shook off the memory as Exedore answered his question.

"I am afraid so admiral," Exedore admitted. "We have found the alien microbes almost everywhere on every single one of our ships."

"Almost everywhere?" Rick questioned.

"The only place we haven't found them is inside the reaction chambers of the reflex furnaces," Exedore admitted, "but then that is hardly surprising." Rick nodded knowing that there was no way anything organic, not even the hardiest of microorganisms, could survive within the reaction chambers of a reflex furnace. The sheer amount of heat created in the reaction chambers, not to mention the radiation, would instantly vaporise any organic material.

"But you've found them everywhere else," he queried.

"We have though we still have no clue as to how they are getting onboard as none of the external ports on any of our ships show the abnormally high concentrations of the microbes that would indicate the infiltration point. It's almost like they are just appearing out of nowhere.

"However, I do not believe that the microbes are any real threat to us. It would only take a recalibration of the shadow dimensional field as well as our standard electronic warfare suites to block the psionic emissions of the microbes."

"How long would that take?"

"It's impossible to say at this time. It will take far more study of the microbes to determine the correct calibration to fully block their signals. I have put a team on it."

"Efficient as always Exedore. What about getting rid of these things?"

"That might not be possible admiral. Not until we figure out just how they are getting aboard our ships in the first place."

"Understandable keep working on it Exedore."

"Of course, admiral."

"Is there anything else?"

"Not at this time admiral."

"Very well dismissed."

Exedore nodded, turned and left leaving Rick once again alone in the ready room. Taking another swig of his coffee Rick pondered what Exedore had reported to him. He had to admit that the mysterious alien microbes were presenting them with a most interesting puzzle, one he knew that Exedore and the rest of the science teams would do their level best to unravel. While he was willing to trust Exedore when he said that he did not believe the organisms to be a threat to the fleet, they certainly weren't a threat to them physically given their immune systems apparently recognised them as a threat and destroyed them, he still wasn't happy with their presence. Too often in the past alien objects and organisms had seemed harmless at first only to prove to be deadly later on, the microorganisms in the atmosphere of Garuda being a case in point – they had seemed harmless to Terran biology at first but had soon revealed themselves to have very detrimental effects on Terran neural chemistry resulting in at best an altered state of consciousness – essentially a permanent drug high – and at worst psychosis and death.

The bleep of the desk comm unit brought him out of his thoughts. Reaching out he pressed the receive button. "Yes?" he asked.

"Sir it's Lieutenant Pren. We've identified three planets that might suit our requirements," Lieutenant Pren reported from the bridge. "All three are within at most two space folds from our current location."

"Excellent work lieutenant. Are three ships prepared to leave the fleet?"

"Yes, sir the _Huron_ , _Tanganyika_ and _Windermere_ report they are ready to depart the fleet on your order."

"Give the order lieutenant and wish them good luck and god speed."

"Aye sir."

As Lieutenant Pren signed off Rick finished off his coffee before leaning back in his chair with a slight smile and a mental cross of the fingers. With luck one of the three planets that the good lieutenant had identified would be the safe haven that they needed. At least till he could figure out just what it was they were going to do about the situation they found themselves in.

* * *

Moments later three Garfish-class light cruisers broke away from where the fleet of Robotech warships were sitting in orbit above the frozen world of Hoth and headed out into open space with all the speed their ion fusion sublight engines could give them. Behind them the remaining ships began changing their formation to compensate for their absence and ensure that the mighty battlefortress in the middle of the fleet – and the precious protoculture matrix aboard her – had the best protection they could provide her with.

Within minutes the three light cruisers cleared the gravity well of the planet and began aligning themselves onto different vectors for their respective space folds. Moments later fold spheres flickered into existence around the vessels and they vanished from normal space on course for their respective targets which would hopefully provide their fleet with a place of sanctuary.

* * *

 **The Ghost**

 **Orbiting Dagobah**

 **A Short Time Later**

General Hera Syndulla stared in shocked amazement to the hologram images that had just been shared with them by Rebel Command on Yavin Four. She wasn't the only one as Zeb and Rex were staring in equal shocked amazement both at the images and the report from the Alliance that whoever had done such damage to a fleet of Imperial warships had done so incredibly, some would say impossibly, fast.

"Karabast who could do something like that to an entire Imperial fleet and do it so fast," Zeb asked aloud shocked, and if he was honest with himself, more than a little intimidated by the report. In all his years in the Honour Guard of Lasan and, after the massacre of his people by the Empire, he had never heard of an Imperial fleet – especially one as big as the hundred and third task force – being defeated. Let alone being defeated in just _five minutes_ with only one badly damaged Star Destroyer surviving that battle to limp to Lothal and the aid of Grand Admiral Thrawn's fleet.

"I don't know," Hera admitted.

"I wonder," Rex mused as the speed of the Imperials defeat and destruction triggered some memories of the clone wars. While he hadn't directly been involved in the events in question as General Skywalker's clone captain he'd soon heard all about it.

"What are you thinking Rex?" Hera asked looking back the old clone who seemed to be very much lost in a mixture of thought and memory.

"It's just a thought," Rex admitted. "Something that could well explain how an Imperial task force as large and well-armed as the hundred and third could be defeated and destroyed so easily. Something similar happened to a few Republic fleets back in the Clone Wars."

"Oh?" Hera asked.

"During the first few months of the war the Separatists unleashed a huge new warship on Republic forces in the Outer Rim," Rex explained, "she was called the _Malevolence_ and she was a monster of a warship. Three kilometres long carrying thousands of turbolasers and two massively oversized ion cannons that could disable entire fleets of our ships with a single shot, killed a lot of my brothers before she was destroyed."

"Karabast how was something like that defeated?" Zeb questioned knowing a ship like that truly was a monster of a dreadnought that even the modern Imperial Navy would fear. Force if her oversized ion cannons were as powerful as Rex was indicating that they were then not even a planetary base – protected by planetary shielding and surface to space cannons – would be safe from her.

"By a combination of General Skywalker's piloting skills, the overconfidence of the Separatists in the capabilities of the _Malevolence_ they believed her to be invincible, sheer dumb luck and the stupidity of the clankers."

"Interesting," Hera commented making a mental note to look up the details on that battle when they got back to Rebel Command, they had records of many of the Clone Wars battles. The records the rebellion held were the largest collection of untampered with records of that war left in the galaxy – all the other known copies had been heavily edited by the Imperial propaganda ministry to remove most if not all references to the pivotal roles the Jedi had played in many of the Republic's victories in that long, bloody and tragically pointless war – but that was for later.

"Do you think that whoever the hundred and third encountered has a ship like the _Malevolence_ Rex?" she asked.

"It's possible that they have something similar to her," Rex replied, "it would explain how and why the Imperials were defeated so quickly without inflicting any damage to whoever their assailants were."

"Possible though it doesn't explain the look of the damage on the holo," Hera pointed out directing their attention to the damage to the _Oath Sworn_ port lateral heavy turbolaser banks, or rather the great slice in the hull where the five eight barrelled turrets would have been. "Whatever did that was no turbolaser."

"We have seen damage like that before Hera," Zeb reminded her, "granted it was on a much smaller scale but remember when Ezra used his first sabre to cut through the hull of the _Sovereign_ over Mustafar. Or when Kanan cut through the blast doors on _Phoenix Home_ when we stole her from the Empire over Ryloth, both times the damage left behind by their blades looked like that."

"A ship-based weapon that cuts through things in the same way a lightsabre blade does. I suppose it's possible," Hera answered making a mental note to mention the possibility of whoever had attacked the hundred and third having not only access to ship-based weapons that could do that but could have a ship with ion cannons as big as those on the long-destroyed _Malevolence_ to Draven the next time she spoke to him. Assuming it hadn't already occurred to him as Draven probably remembered the Clone Wars just as much as Rex did having been an agent of Republic Intelligence at the time.

"I just hope whoever attacked the Imperials is on our side," Zeb commented knowing that any weapon that could slice through the dense, high quality armour of an Imperial-class Star Destroyer with such ease would be able to do the same to the few heavy capital ships that the Rebels had should they prove hostile to the Alliance as well.

Hera was about to reply when a bleep from the sensors caught her attention. She glanced at the repeater screen on the pilot's station to see that the _Phantom_ had just emerged from Dagobah's thick, storm wracked atmosphere and was making its way back towards the _Ghost_. Life form readings also indicated that there were now three beings aboard the small shuttle, meaning that nothing had gone wrong with the mission – not that she'd expected it to, but it was always good to be prepared – and that Master Yoda had been safely retrieved from the swampy surface of this out of the way mudball of a planet.

"Oh, good they're coming back," Zeb commented also seeing the _Phantom_ returning. "That didn't take as long as I feared it would."

"Master Yoda was probably waiting for Kanan and Ezra when they landed," Hera replied as the _Phantom_ drew closer and began to manoeuvre into dock, as they closed Hera entered a command into the _Ghost's_ navigational computer instructing it to begin calculating the fastest hyperspace route back to the current headquarters of the still young Rebel Alliance.

"If he was I am glad of it I don't like this place," Zeb admitted.

"Dagobah does seem to be something of a mudhole," Rex agreed though he had seen, and fought, in worse places during the Clone Wars than Dagobah it was still not the nicest of planets to visit. Even just sitting here in orbit it looked to be a most unpleasant place which was probably why nobody bothered with it. And which had made it the perfect hiding place for the last Jedi Grand Master.

Zeb was about to comment on that when two things happened nearly simultaneously that brought an end to that particular conversation. First a soft shudder ran through the hull of the _Ghost_ accompanied by the faint thuds of magnetic docking clamps engaging as the _Phantom_ slid into its birth on the aft dorsal side of the ship. The second was urgent bleeping from the sensors. Being closest to the screens Zeb turned to look and his eyes widened slightly.

"Hera sensors are picking up a gravitational disturbance forming nearby," he reported.

"Where and how big," Hera demanded to know even as a red warning light began flashing on her console as the navigational computer began indicating that the gravitational disturbance was interfering with the complex calculations necessary for the safe execution of a hyperspace jump.

"Bearing one two six by zero, zero four. Distance, karabast its only three kilometres away," Zeb replied, "the distortion is registering as a class two… no class three. We're now also picking up some phase shifts and spatial distortion. It's almost like the fabric of space is being distorted somehow."

"That's a bit too close for comfort," Hera answered already engaging the sublight engines to move the _Ghost_ away from the gravitational/spatial disturbance. However, they had barely moved a kilometre from it when a wave of distorted gravity slammed like a giant fist into the heavily modified VCX-100 light freighter and knocked them spinning out of control. Swearing in her native language Hera fought with the navigational thrusters and main ion drives to get her beloved ship back under control.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity – but was in reality only a few dozen seconds – she succeeded. As the _Ghost_ came back onto an even keel something became visible through the cockpit windows that had all of them stunned. A cruiser-weight ship had appeared nearby, right where the spatial distortion had been, and it was completely unlike anything they had ever seen before.

The unknown vessel had a shape vaguely reminiscent of a wine bottle laid on its side in that forward third of the strangely, almost organically curved, ship was slimmer than the rest – though it was still wider than the _Ghost_ was long – before gently tapering out into the main body of the vessel. Slung on its underside was a boxy structure that from the doors on it appeared to be a flight bay of some type and appeared to be quite modular in design. Though what immediately grabbed attention was what was slung underneath the ships nose – a large tri-barrel turret sat there though there was something about the design of the barrels that said, at least to the experienced spacers and committed rebels, that those cannons were not turbolasers or any other kind of cannon that they were familiar with. Just over a dozen smaller turrets – that again did not look at all like turbolaser or blaster turrets – lined the hull and in the bow, they could clearly see the openings of torpedo tubes. Even more strangely the ship seemed to be shimmering slightly and oily-looking sheen flickering over the hull that made their eyes want to just slide right off it.

Zeb summed up what they were all feeling. "Oh karabast."

For another few moments nothing happened then two things once again happened almost simultaneously. First the cockpit doors opened and they all heard three people come into the room. Hera turned to look at them only for surprise to turn into concern when she saw that something seemed to be wrong with all three Force users. Kanan especially seemed to be paler than normal, was noticeably sweating and struggling to find his way forward – moving in the same kind of way he had when he'd first been blinded, before the Bendu had taught him how to use the Force to see – and was being supported by Ezra. Who honestly didn't look that well himself as his copper coloured skin seemed slightly paler than normal and there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead. As for Yoda she didn't know enough about his species to be certain but from the frown on his forehead and the way his large ears were dropped down she thought he seemed uncomfortable as well.

She was just about to open her mouth to express her instant concern both for her best friend – and if she was honest with herself love interest – and her surrogate son when the second event struck as abruptly the overhead lights began flickering. Hera looked up in surprise a moment before Chopper emitted a binary wail before being blown back from where he was plugged into the ship, the droid collapsed to the deck and began to spark as though he'd been hit by an ion blast. Even as Chopper keeled over various monitors and gages began flickering and washing with electrostatic interference.

"We're being scanned by the unknown cruiser," Rex reported as the acrid scent of overloading electronics began to fill the air.

"We're losing systems all over," Zeb added raising an arm to shield his face as his console sparked and washed with bluish energy that looked almost like lightning. "Weapons, shields, propulsion everything is going down. Karabast our main fuel cells are starting to overload if this doesn't stop soon we're going to blow up."

"Shut them down, shut everything down," Hera ordered a microsecond before all the flickering, arcing and sparking stopped as quickly as it had started.

"They've stopped scanning us," Rex reported,

"Zeb with Chopper down I need you to compile a damage report," Hera instructed the Lasat.

"On it Hera. Karabast how could a simple scan do that to us," Zeb wondered.

"The power behind it was phenomenal," Rex pointed out. "According to our monitors it was higher than the full output of a Star Destroyers main reactor."

"And at this close a range the electromagnetic flux from such a powerful scan would have easily penetrated our navigational shields and impacted our systems rapidly overloading all our EM shielding," Hera finished for him as she realized exactly what had happened. She made a mental note to recommend that the Alliance attempt to reinforce the electromagnetic flux shielding on all ships as it would help prevent incidents like this as well as reduce their vulnerability to ion weaponry.

"So, the effect on the ship and on Chopper was accidental," Rex concluded. "I don't really want to imagine what would have happened if it had been a deliberate attack."

"Dead we would be," Yoda said speaking for the first time. "If their intent aggression had been, vapours now would we be. To hurt us they did not mean, believe they are merely curious about us I do."

"I have to agree," Rex admitted before looking fully at Master Yoda and despite himself he was surprised to see just how much the centuries old Jedi had aged in the last nineteen years. The bound to be harsh environment of Dagobah and nearly two decades of sorrow over the death of the vast majority of the Jedi Order in Order 66 having clearly taken their toll on him. "General Yoda it is good to see you again."

"Captain Rex agreeable it is to meet you again," Yoda replied easily recognising Anakin's clone captain through his Force signature as despite their identical appearance every single one of Jango Fett's clones had felt unique in the Force. A sign to many Jedi that while they all wore the same face each clone had been an individual with their own minds and personalities. "Helping the rebellion you are?"

Rex nodded a moment before Zeb spoke up.

"Damage assessment complete Hera," he said.

"How bad is it Zeb?"

"Not as bad as it could have been. Almost all our main systems, including the hyperdrive, are back online and functioning normally. However, our shield generator has been fried as have our signal scrambling and masking equipment."

"Oh, those are going to be a pain to fix," Ezra commented speaking up before wincing as a high-pitched whistling – almost like radio white noise – blasted through his head for the second time in the last five minutes or so. The previous time being when they'd just disembarked the _Phantom_ and some invisible force had shaken the _Ghost_ like a toy. "Ugh what is that," he groaned noting out the corner of his eyes that Kanan was even more affected by the noise, leaning forward and starting to knee his temples as though to ward off a migraine. Which was kind of understandable given how Kanan used the Force to at least somewhat compensate for his blindness.

"Disruption in the Force it is," Yoda answered using his gimmer stick to balance himself against the wave of dizziness that washed over him. While he had never experienced a disruption in the Force quite like this before he was more than experienced enough to realize where it was coming from. "Coming from the alien vessel it is. Over there something creating a disturbance in the Force is."

Listening to the ancient master's words and doing his best to ignore the maddening white noise tone in his head, Ezra looked out the viewport at the alien vessel for the first time hoping to see something in the Force from it that would explain the distortion. And he froze with shock as he _recognized the vessel_. It was one of the ones from his visions and as he gazed upon it he once again heard the voice he'd heard at the end of the vision _"your fate and the fate of the galaxy you know is now tied to the fate of the Children of Earth."_ _It's them,_ he thought in a shocked moment of clarity, _they are the Children of Earth. Though I still have no idea what the other part about them being the future and the past means._ He was brought out of his thoughts by the sound of Hera's voice.

"All the more reason to leave here," Hera said seeing how the disturbance in the Force being created by the unknown alien warship was affecting the Jedi but especially Kanan who was immersed in the Force all the time these days, using it continuously to compensate for the loss of his natural eyesight during that disastrous mission that Master Yoda had sent him, Ezra and Ahsoka on. A mission that – now that he was here – she fully had intentions of talking to him about. Especially given how that mission's aftermath had come so close to ripping her crew apart between Kanan falling into a deep depression as a result of his injury to nearly losing Ezra to the dark side thanks to the malignant and insidious influence of the Sith holocron.

But that was for later right now they just needed to get out of here before something else happened. Thankfully that wouldn't be difficult as her readings indicated that the navigational computer was still fully functional and had finished its calculations for a hyperspace jump back to Yavin IV. So, without further ado she brought the _Ghost_ around onto the correct vector and pushed forward the lever that engaged the hyperdrive. For a moment nothing happened, and she began to fear that there might have been some undetected damage to the hyperdrive motivator making it impossible to accelerate to FTL speeds, then there came the familiar whirring of the hyperdrive starting up and microseconds later the viewport filled with first star lines then the swirling blue tunnel of hyperspace.

The effect on the three Jedi was immediate as the discomfort that they'd been experiencing faded away. Kanan especially relaxed back in his seat his entire body posture showing exhaustion. "Kanan you should go to your cabin and rest a bit," Hera suggested gently.

"Rest we all should," Master Yoda said "very disorientating that disturbance was. In eight hundred years never felt it's like before have I. Learn how to overcome it we must."

"Do you think we will be able to Master?" Ezra asked.

"Through the Force possible anything is padawan," Yoda replied with a tired smile, the side effects of the exposure to the Force distortion leaving him feeling tired, weak and noticing every one of his eight hundred and ninety-six years of life. "Just a matter of time and patience finding the way is. But for later that is, rest and recover now we must but first something you have to tell us hmm? Something about that ship it is?"

"Ezra?" Hera said seeming to convey multiple questions with just his name, even as she stood up and went over to start attending to her faithful if extremely cantankerous and currently completely disabled droid.

"That ship I recognised it," Ezra admitted unconsciously rubbing a hand against the back of his neck. "It's one of the ones I saw in my vision. And I heard that voice again the one saying about our fate being tied to the fate of the Children of Earth whatever that means."

"Hmm far more going on here I sense there is," Yoda said thoughtfully while making a mental note to speak to Ezra later and to get the young Lothalan to meditate on the vision with him. Perhaps with his much greater experiences with such things he would be able to learn more from the vision than Ezra had, he decided then and there that he would incorporate it into the padawan's first visions lesson.

"Should we reverse course and try to speak to them," Zeb asked referring the alien ship.

"No, it's not time yet," Ezra said seemingly speaking from a long way away, the classic sign of a Jedi narrating something from the Force itself. "We will know when it is time for our path and the path of the Children of Earth to cross. Until then we must leave them be." As he finished speaking he stumbled slightly as though coming out of a trance. "Whoa what was that?"

"The Force spoke through you," Kanan replied.

"It can do that?"

"Sometimes though very rare it is," Yoda answered. "Only a handful of times heard of it have I. Listen to it we should."

"And we will do so," Hera said decisively even as she worked to bring Chopper back online. "Still we should inform Rebel Command of our encounter with that ship. I suspect that there is a connection between them and what happened to the Imperial 103rd task force."

"What happened," Kanan asked curious.

Knowing that they needed to know, and that Mon Mothma wanted Master Yoda's thoughts on the matter, Hera once again lurched into an explanation of the events that had taken place three days earlier in System M-77677.

* * *

 **Authors Note: Well another chapter bites the dust. I was going to do a segment at the end from the perspective of the REF cruiser that encountered the Ghost over Dagobah but ultimately decided against it as it didn't really add anything to the chapter and felt – as I tried to write it – to be unnecessary padding added to what has already been a reasonably long chapter. Once again I apologise for lack of any real action in this chapter as it was more about setting things up for future chapters and an upcoming arc involving a certain lost fleet of ships.**


	9. Chapter 9

_**A Left Turn at Albuquerque**_

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the characters that I am about to mangle around for my own amusement – sadly all Robotech and Star Wars characters remain the property of Harmony Gold, Disney and Lucasfilm Ltd respectively – I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit from their use. As a result, please keep the legal attack dogs – also known as lawyers – firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give to anybody.**

* * *

 **Chapter Nine**

 **Independent Freighter Twilight Monsoon**

 **Sometime Later**

Jordmar Edmodarn hummed softly as he brought his beloved ship out of hyperspace for a short cruise between hyperspace lanes as to carry their cargo of medical supplies and industrial mining equipment from Naboo to Sullest required a hyperspace lane change. It would take a few hours to make the journey across the system at sublight to the point where they'd be able to return to hyperspace and complete what promised to be a relatively lucrative voyage. He also did not anticipate any problems acquiring a new cargo after they unloaded their current cargo.

"You sound happy," a warm female voice said from behind him. Jordmar looked over his shoulder to see that his co-pilot/business partner/sometimes lover Wevv Malzin had come into the cockpit of their heavily modified Ghtroc 720 light freighter, a somewhat cheeky grin on her yellowish green Miralian features.

"Should I not be," he asked with the characteristic roguish grin of a Corellian. "We're only one jump away from Sullest and payday. Then its just a matter of finding a new cargo."

"True though can we please go somewhere nicer than Sullest on our next job," Wevv asked as she slid into the co-pilots seat.

"Hmm I'll see what I can do about that. Where do you fancy Alderaan? Empress Tata?" He didn't say anything about returning to his homeworld as the Imperial nationalisation of the shipyards – that for millennia had been his people's pride and joy – and their support industries had really done a number on the planets environment. The last time he'd been there he'd been hard pressed not to whip out a blaster and shoot some stormtroopers in retribution for what the Empire was doing to his homeworld.

"Alderaan sounds nice its been a couple of years since we last went there."

"Okay Alderaan it is," Jordmar agreed a moment before a proximity alert went off on his console. Before he could turn to see what, the problem was, a flicker of pseudo motion outside the viewport caught his attention and he looked over to see a dreadnought-class heavy cruiser with Black Sun markings had just dropped out of hyperspace and it was practically right on top of them. "Oh kriff."

"You can say that again," Wevv replied. "What in the Forces name is a Black Sun dreadnought doing here? And how the hell do they even have one?"

Jordmar shrugged his shoulders as he had absolutely no answers. The Empire was usually quite thorough in ensuring no private organisation or enterprise had access to any warships above frigate classification. A cruiser-class vessel – even one as ancient but still extremely potent as the dreadnought-class heavy cruisers – being in the hands of an organisation like Black Sun was thus a very strict no-no. After all the last thing the Imperials wanted was for any private organisation to have the means of giving the slowly growing rebellion anymore heavy warships than they already had. _Maybe there is truth to the rumours going through some of the cantina's that Xizor has entered into a business relationship with the Emperor it would certainly explain how and why they have cruiser class vessels,_ he thought.

At that moment a dull thud followed by a soft shudder ran through the deck. Jordmar didn't even have to look to know that the dreadnought had just locked onto them with a tractor beam. "I don't know as nothing in our cargo warrants them doing this to us, especially with a dreadnought," he replied.

"No, it doesn't. Do you think they're after the other thing?"

"Possibly, especially if the rumours are true and the Dark Prince is sucking up to the Emperor," he agreed exchanging a worried but determined look with Wevv. The item in question was a crate that had been entrusted to their care at the end of the Clone Wars by Milo Thrain – a Jedi Sentinel who'd worked with them all through the Clone Wars using the _Twilight Monsoon_ as his transport rather than requisitioning a warship – when the man had been dying after being shot by the three Clone Troopers who'd also been part of the crew during the war except at the end when Palpatine issued Order 66. As they both recalled Milo hadn't gone down easily – as unlike most Jedi he had preferred body armour to itchy robes – and taken out two of the clones before the last one managed to get him. Though the clone's triumph hadn't lasted long before a bolt from Jordmar's heavy pistol ended the turncoat trooper's life.

They'd never opened the crate in question but had kept it securely locked away as the mortally wounded Milo had asked before his life expired.

"We can't let them take it," Wevv commented. "Milo died to protect whatever is in that crate there's no way I'm letting some trumped up Falleen gangster who maybe or maybe not be in bed with our 'beloved Emperor' get his slimy hands on it."

"Agreed," Jordmar replied with a nod as he started tapping various controls powering up the _Twilight Monsoon's_ weapons systems and beginning to power up the shield generator – being a military model, albeit a clone wars model it would take several seconds to build up enough power running as it was off an upgraded civilian power plant – though he wouldn't be able to raise the shields while the dreadnought had them in its tractor beam.

"Okay weapons and shields are powering up," he said. "Go back and get R4 out of his recharge slot would you then man the turret."

"On it," Wevv replied as she stood up and raced out of the cockpit to first get there astromech out of his charging station and then climb up into the dorsal turret that housed the dual heavy blaster cannons that were their main – but not only as thanks to a combination of Milo and Jordmar's weariness of Imperials – but not only armament.

As she left the cockpit the radio crackled to life. "Freighter _Twilight Monsoon_ this is Vigo Melan of the Black Sun dreadnought _Valiant Watcher_. Power down your weapons and prepare to be boarded and you will not be harmed," a Falleen voice said over the radio.

 _Yeah like I'd believe one of you reptilian bastards,_ Jordmar thought as he kept his eyes focused on the viewport and the dreadnought that was growing bigger and bigger outside. In seconds the dreadnought would be in position to latch onto their dorsal docking port than a score of Black Sun mercenaries – who were well known for their brutality – would pore into the ship. He knew well that they wouldn't hesitate to kill him where he sat and take Wevv – who was quite attractive even by human standards – as a new slave either for the pleasure of their dreadnought's commander, Xizor himself or worse sell her into the galactic slave circuit – which had ballooned in size since the Empire took over.

"Not if I can help it," he muttered to himself as he flicked a control causing two small hatches – one on either side of the cockpit – to open and a target grid to appear on one of his screens. Along with an infographic that showed clearly that their battery of twelve concussion missiles were armed. Moving the crosshairs on the target grid he locked onto the dreadnought. "Eat this," he muttered as he thumbed the trigger causing a shiver of recoil to run through the ship as two concussion missiles were sent flying into space.

Instantly the missiles, before they could even start their own engines, sped towards the dreadnought as they instantly became caught in her tractor beam. The _Valiant Watcher's_ crew had no chance to react as the two missiles ion engines engaged further boosting their speed as they slammed into the ship at virtually point-blank range. Both missiles impacting the aft engineering section of the dreadnought whose shields – set as they were to the default ray shield configuration to better repel turbolaser and other energy weapons fire – offered no resistance as the two missiles – their speed increased to beyond their normal level by the dual actions of their engines and the tractor beams pull – punched deep into the armour band before detonating.

The effect was dramatic.

A visible shockwave rippled along the underside of the dreadnought, titanium-durasteel armour rippling like water with some plates snapping off and spinning into space. The force of the blasts was channelled by the armour into/then through the pressure hull and severing a primary power conduit. The result of which sent arcs and sheets of raw, white-hot electricity from its hypermatter reactors through the aft lower decks flash frying engineers alive and causing droids to explode as the rampaging electrons subjected them to massive overloads. Secondary explosions erupted, spreading the sudden mayhem inside the _Valiant Watcher_ even further, as damaged systems and conduits overloaded and blew out.

The _Twilight Monsoon_ shivered slightly as the tractor beam tethering them to the dreadnought released as the emitters and beam generator lost power. Jordmar immediately turned on the shields and gunned the sublight engines to full power and banked away from the dreadnought, heading for the safety of open space like a spooked mynock. He was after all well aware that while his missiles had inflicted serious damage to the _Valiant Watcher_ she would only be helpless for a short time. Soon her damage control crews would shut down the ruptured conduit, extinguish the electrical fires that had no doubt started before rerouting power and then the dreadnought would be after them turbolasers blazing. There only hope really was to outrun her as for all their strength dreadnought-class heavy cruisers were not exactly the fastest of capital ships. In fact, they were well known to be quite slow and cumbersome.

He just hoped that the _Valiant Watcher_ wasn't one of the ex-Imperial models of the dreadnought-class. A few moments later that hope was dashed as the sensors warned of multiple small contacts leaving the dreadnought. It definitely had to be ex-Imperial as every single one of the fighters was – according to the computer analysis of the silhouettes – a V-Wing starfighter which had entered service with the Republic in the last few months of the Clone Wars and which had served the Empire for the first few years of its existence before the TIE line was developed.

"Oh, kriffing hell," he muttered knowing that despite being small the V-Wing was quite a potent little starfighter. "Wevv."

"I see them," Wevv called back even as she rotated the turret to face the incoming fighters and pressed the trigger sending coruscating red bolts of superheated ionized tibana gas flying into space towards the approaching fighters. The lead fighter had obviously not been expecting to be attacked immediately by the freighter – or for his prey to have such heavy energy weapons – as it ran straight into her shots. The heavy bolts immediately punching through its shields to turn the fighter and its pilot into a plume of vaporised metal and torn fragments no bigger than a playing card.

"Nice shot," Jordmar called up to his co-pilot as he began taking evasive action even as the V-Wing formation broke up as the pilots attempted to sort themselves out into a new attack pattern following the sudden death of their leader. The sound of their astromech R4-D7 entering the cockpit caught his attention. "R4 interface with the navi-computer and start calculating an emergency hyperspace jump."

R4 warbled an affirmative and rolled over to one of the terminals and plugged himself in. It was at that moment that the fighters – apparently having sorted themselves out – blew in their light laser cannons raking the _Twilight Monsoon_ making her shields flash with static as they absorbed and dissipated the energy of the plasma bolts. A soft shiver ran through the deck but other than that they were unharmed.

Jordmar allowed himself a slight smile at that as from the way the V-Wings wobbled slightly their pilots were surprised by the resilience of the _Twilight Monsoon's_ shields, obviously having expected them to standard civilian grade shields which would have sustained serious damage under that barrage. Not took it and shrugged it off. There hesitation cost them as Wevv took advantage of it to turn another fighter into a cloud of debris.

Shaking off their shock the Black Sun's mercenary pilots attacked again. Raking the _Twilight Monsoon_ again and again. Wevv fired back, though most of her shots missed though she did score a glancing hit on one fighter making its shields flare with electrostatic strain and making the craft momentarily stagger in space with the transmitted kinetic force. It was all the time she needed to tag the fighter with a full-on hit sending it to its doom.

Obviously angry and frightened now – as this particular prey was showing itself to have a tough hide and very sharp teeth and claws with which to protect itself – the mercenary pilots attacked again this time focusing all their fire on the freighter's aft deflector shield. Immediately warnings began to flash on Jordmar's screens warning that the aft shield was starting to corrode, and he instantly banked to try and shake off the fighters. Only for the damned things to use their superior agility to stick like glue to his rear end.

"Wevv," Jordmar called back as the ship shook fiercely under the heavy laser assault.

"I'm trying Jord," Wevv yelled back as she endeavoured to shoot the fighters down, but they were staying mostly out of her arc having figured out that getting into her range was certain death for them. "But they're staying out of my arc."

"Stand by," Jordmar replied before abruptly killing the engines and firing his reverse thrusters at full power causing the V-Wings to shoot past them, the move catching them completely off guard. Almost immediately the pilots scrambled to get out of the firing arc of the dorsal turret again, most made it though Wevv was still able to nail two of them sending the pilots into the eternal embrace of the Force. "Nice one."

"Thanks, but I don't think they're going to fall for that again," Wevv replied as Jordmar reengaged the main engines and attempted to pull away from the momentarily disorganized fighters.

"Probably not," Jordmar agreed. "R4 how's that hyperspace course coming?"

The droid warbled back that he had one calculated. It was only a short jump, but it would get them to the hyperspace lane, from there it would be a simple matter to escape before the dreadnought and its fighters could catch up with them.

"Great work R4," Jordmar praised as he stabilized the ship for the jump to hyperspace.

Unfortunately, at that moment their luck ran out as the fighters, smarting from their losses and detecting that the _Twilight Monsoon's_ hyperdrive was powering up for a jump, attacked once again. As before they focused their firepower on the engines and broke through the weakened aft shields to land blasts on the engines. Alarms went off in the cockpit as Jordmar was almost thrown out of his chair as the starboard ion engine violently flamed out from the damage causing his beloved ship to begin corkscrewing out of control from the sudden uneven thrust.

Grunting he fought with the controls and after a few seconds of effort managed to get _Twilight Monsoon_ back under control.

"How bad is it," Wevv called from the turret.

"Starboard engines out. Oh, kriff and we've lost the hyperdrive as well," Jordmar replied a profound sense of defeat falling on him like a smothering blanket. The Black Sun had them now.

"You know what we need to do," Wevv said. "We cannot let Xizor get his hands-on Milo's crate, especially as he's certain to give it to the Emperor."

Jordmar sighed. "I know," he said knowing the only way to keep the crate from eventually falling into the hands of the Emperor and to save himself and Wevv from a fate worse than death – as Xizor was sure to make them pay dearly for giving the forces he sent against them so much trouble – and that was to go out on their own terms. And besides if Milo had been right then when they died they'd see him again in the infinite realms of the Force. "R4 on my command prepare to overload the fuel cells."

The astromech warbled sadly but prepared to do as his master – who had widely boasted to other astromech's to be the best master a droid could ever ask for – asked. However, before he could begin the process of removing all the safeties on the main power cores fuel cells a new event occurred as two things happened virtually simultaneously.

First a trio of brilliant blue-white beams of radiant energy abruptly cut across space, lancing between the now near helpless _Twilight Monsoon_ and the remaining Black Sun fighters that had run them down. The energy backwash of the beams actually destroying one of the fighters and sending the rest spinning out of control their shields flaring against the energy wash. Simultaneously a transmission burst across the radio.

* * *

 **UES Tanganyika**

 **A Few Minutes Earlier**

Sitting in the quiet confines of his ready room Captain Kaidan Halsey resisted, just, the impulse to sigh as he worked his way through the incessant amounts of paperwork – or rather its modern electronic descendant – that came with commanding a starship. Thankfully the load on him was relatively light today, the fact that they were in another galaxy who knew how many billions of light years from their own meant that most of the more bureaucratic make-work paperwork could be quietly shelved for later leaving only the more important bits for him to deal with.

Which was still quite a considerable amount.

He was just starting to read through a report on the state of the ship's missile stores – both for their single squadron of Alpha fighters and the _Tanganyika's_ own missile and torpedo batteries – when the desk comm unit signalled for his attention. Instantly relieved to have something other than paperwork to do he reached forward and touched a button on the terminal. "Yes?" he asked.

"Sorry to disturb you sir but we're coming up on our first defold point," his XO Lieutenant Commander Veronica Mars reported from the bridge. _This soon,_ Kaidan thought before blinking as his eyes fell upon the wall chronometer which showed he'd actually been doing his paperwork for the better part of an hour. More than enough time for the _Tanganyika_ – equipped as she was with the latest generation of the hyperspace fold system – to cross the thirty-two thousand, two hundred and sixty light years that was the farthest distance a ship could safely go in a single fold. It was about two thirds of the way to the planet they'd been tasked with surveying as a possible new home for their people, should it be determined that it was impossible for them to get back home.

Something that he knew was very likely to be the case since analysis of star charts had shown that this galaxy – which according to the star charts recovered from the _Kimbala_ was called Corusca – definitely was not part of their local group of galaxies. The science divisions were still in the process of trying to figure out exactly where they were in relation to the Milky Way, only then would they be able to determine if it was possible to travel across the great vast darkness of intergalactic space in any reasonable space of time. Like anyone with any experience in astronavigation he didn't think they would be able to find away home, though of course they still had to at the very least try.

"I'll be right their commander," he replied into the comm unit as he stood up. After taking a moment to retrieve his uniform jacket from the back of the chair and putting it on he left his ready room and made the short walk onto the bridge of his beloved ship. And not for the first time noting how different it was to on some of the older ships he'd served on over the years being white panelled, surprisingly spacious for a warship as small as a Garfish and far higher tech with holographic projector fields having long since replaced the dials and TFT screens of the older ships.

"Status," he asked as he made his way to the command chair and sat down. Which never ceased to make him feel somewhat like a king as the command chair on the bridge of modern Terran warships was not only at the back of the bridge but on a slightly elevated platform over everyone else, allowing a ships master or mistress to have clear lines of sight to both the holographic HUD's floating in their projector fields but the bridge windows as well. Though the latter was purely a side effect as in battle, despite what pre-Robotech science fiction had liked to show, a ship's crew rarely actually saw the enemy capital ships that they were firing at as anything more than distant points of light. Which was fully understandable when you considered that at three hundred thousand kilometres even the biggest ship would be all but invisible against the darkness of even interplanetary space. A discovery during the First Robotech War that had done in the old romantic notions of space combat – at least between capital warships.

"Sir we've reached our defold point," the helmswoman reported, "commencing hyperspace defold manoeuvre in three… two… one."

Kaidan nodded and leaned back in the command chair as around him the crew began the process of navigating the ship through its return to normal space. A shiver and a thrum of incalculable power ran through the entire ship, seeming to make the very air itself vibrate, a microsecond before a shimmering wall seemingly appeared outside the ship as the fold bubble and the ship within it burst back into normal space from a hyperspatial wormhole. A flash of bluish energy – that everyone would always compare to a gyroscope in appearance – appeared as the fold sphere dissipated and the _Tanganyika_ and everyone aboard her fully integrated back into normal space-time. He couldn't help but smile at how smooth the transition with the newest model fold engine was in comparison to their older drives. With the first- and second-generation space fold drives the transition to and from hyperspace could be… well… somewhat bumpy to put it mildly.

The sudden wailing of a proximity alert instantly drew him out of those thoughts. "What is it," he demanded.

"Sir sensors are picking up a number of contacts on a bearing of zero, zero, one mark zero, one, two distance two hundred thousand kilometres," sensors reported. _No wonder they triggered the proximity alert,_ Kaidan thought as two hundred thousand kilometres was well within their weapons range. Thus, any unknown vessel would be immediately tagged by the sensors as a potential threat.

"What do you make of them," he asked hoping against hope that the ships were not Imperial. They'd already had more than enough encounters with them since coming to this galaxy and while he didn't fear any known Imperial warship – all their encounters so far had shown they had little to fear from them having both superior armour and weapons to the Imperials – it would be extremely inconvenient to say the least. Especially as they would certainly be forced into an engagement as it took several minutes for even the most modern hyperspace fold drives to complete a cool down and repower cycle after propelling the ship so far.

"Scans confirm they're not Imperial," sensors reported. "It looks like one small vessel that appears to be a freighter of some type. The others are one vessel around heavy cruiser size and a dozen fighters of unknown design. The fighters appear to be attacking the freighter, the cruiser is hanging back it appears to have been damaged."

"Pirates," Kaidan answered with an annoyed grimace on his face. He'd dealt with pirate's numerous times over his career as not all the Zentraedi or Triumvirate Clones who'd served the Robotech Masters had joined them after the First and Second Robotech Wars. Instead they'd become pirates and were thus a constant security headache for the Expeditionary Force and the armed forces of the various Sentinel races.

Thankfully there were standing orders for what to do about pirates if they encountered them and the best part of it was the fact that those standing orders had not yet been rescinded.

"Orders sir," Veronica asked a second before the officer at sensors spoke up again.

"Captain the freighters engines must have been hit," the young man reported. "They're losing speed. Sir we've got to do something."

"And we are," Kaidan replied, orders to avoid contact with the natives be damned he was not about to leave some innocent spacers at the mercy of a group of bully's – which were what pirates usually turned out to be. "Battle stations. Scramble our veritechs and power up all standard weapons and tactical don't bother with the shadow device, let them see us. As soon as the guns are ready fire a warning shot across that cruisers bow. Communications as soon as the warning shot has been fired transmit the standard warning just remember to tie in the translation matrix."

"Aye sir."

For a moment more nothing happened then a faint thrum of power ran through the ship as the main turret on the underside of the ship fired sending a trio of brilliant blue beams of supercharged, hyper-compressed protons at near lightspeed towards the pirate fighters. The beams, as meant, passed between the pirate fighters and the freighter in a clean miss. Kaidan raised an eyebrow when he saw one of the pirate fighters disappear in a brilliant explosion, obviously having been slightly too close to the beams and been obliterated by the particle backwash. The rest of the fighters spun out of control as the beams disappeared, the backwash throwing them around like flotsam in a storm. A backwash that really wasn't that strong, certainly when compared to the massive backwash of reflex and synchro cannons which, especially the former, had been known to destroy entire squadrons of ships.

 _Damn these guys ships are so fragile,_ he thought with a slight shake of his head as he saw the fighter die. He glanced over at the communications officer as the younger man opened a broad-spectrum channel, so the pirate fighters and cruiser would be sure to hear them.

"Attention pirate fighters and cruiser this is the United Earth Ship _Tanganyika._ You are directed to surrender or withdraw from this area immediately," the officer said, "failure to comply with this demand will result in your immediate destruction." Immediately they got a response. "Incoming transmission from the cruiser."

 _Guess we got their attention,_ Kaidan thought before speaking up. "Alright put it through," he said.

Instantly a projector field activated and a holographic screen pixeled into existence bringing in an image of the alien bridge. It was very plane looking with a mixture of different races manning consoles along the walls of the room, though a handful were freestanding. There appeared to be a faint haze in the air of the cruisers bridge, almost like smoke and he wondered if it was from the damage the cruiser had already sustained. Though what immediately grabbed his attention was the green-skinned reptilian looking humanoid in what was clearly the command chair. The alien spoke immediately.

"This is Vigo Melan of the Black Sun dreadnought _Valiant Watcher_. This matter is not your concern I suggest you withdraw immediately, or we'll destroy you," the alien said with an arrogant confidence that said the alien was used to being obeyed.

"Captain the cruiser is turning towards us and her engines just came on," sensors reported. "They appear to be attempting to target us." _Probably trying to intimidate us as everything we know about this galaxy's weapons tech shows they cannot hope to hit us at this range,_ Kaidan thought.

"You are engaged in piratical activities Vigo Melan," Kaidan replied, "as an officer in the Robotech Expeditionary Force I am bound by duty and honour to stop you. We can do this the easy way and you get to live but if you insist on doing things the hard way." He made a gesture to his bridge tactical officer.

Moments later the _Tanganyika's_ main turret fired twice more sending beams first above and then below the dreadnought their energy spill not only making its shields flare with stress but violently rocking the entire vessel. On his holoscreen Kaidan saw Melan grab the armrests of his seat as the bridge of his ship visibly shook as though gripped by a sharp two to three second earthquake. Immediately he saw alien crewmembers giving each other nervous glances as they realized the horrific range and power of the _Tanganyika's_ weapons systems.

"That was your last warning Vigo Melan," Kaidan said conversationally. "Recall your fighters and leave now and I'll let you live. Continue your aggressive approach and I will turn you and your ship into a cloud of plasma and dust long before your weapons can touch me. I give you one minute to make your decision."

Vigo Melan scowled his skin turning a darker shade of green in a combination of anger and fear. Kaidan just watched as the unknown being mentally weighed the pro's and con's and ultimately came to the decision that Kaidan knew he would. Like all pirates Melan was – and whoever this Black Sun he worked for were – a coward and didn't really have the stomach for any fight where he didn't already have an overwhelming advantage.

"Fine we'll leave," Melan said at last with a very unhappy frown on his face. "I do not know who you are, and I don't care to. All I will tell you is this the Black Sun will not forgive or forget this disrespectful behaviour, you have made an enemy of us this day."

"Noted," Kaidan replied not at all bothered by the threat. It was after all nothing he had not heard many times before from dozens of criminal groups and organisations back home. They always got so full of themselves and thought themselves to be the second coming of the Robotech Masters or something, but always, always buckled before the REF's superior firepower and training. Should this Black Sun give them trouble, well they would soon learn what it truly meant to be on the business end of a particle beam cannon. He paid no attention to the growl of annoyance from the alien on the holoscreen before it broke the channel from its end. The holographic screen vanished from existence as if it had never been present at all.

"Sir the pirate fighters are returning to their cruiser," sensors reported. "The cruiser is also turning away from us."

"Keep an eye on them," Kaidan ordered, "I don't trust them not to try anything at the last minute."

"Aye sir," sensors acknowledged the younger officer diligently watching his screens as the _Valiant Watcher_ collected its surviving fighters. Somewhat to his surprise that was all the pirates did, they did absolutely nothing to further threaten the damaged freighter. Instead as soon as the last of their fighters was aboard the vessel vanished into the FTL system the people of this galaxy seemed to use. "The pirate cruiser has gone to FTL sir."

"Excellent communications send a message to the damaged freighter. Offer them assistance," Kaidan ordered.

"Aye sir."

* * *

 **Twilight Monsoon**

 **A Few Moments Earlier**

Still sitting in his pilot's chair Jordmar watched, and listened, in amazement as the unknown warship that had identified itself as the _Tanganyika_ – which was a very strange name if he ever heard one – forced the Black Sun to withdraw. Beside him, having come back down from the gun turret, Wevv was just as shocked and amazed by what they had just witnessed. In all their thirty odd years of plying the space lanes together they had never once heard of the Black Sun backing off like that before.

Both guessed the utterly unheard-of range of the alien energy weapons, not to mention the incredible power that their sensors showed was in those beams, had something to do with it. Vigo Melan had obviously realized that while his dreadnought-class cruiser was tough and durable it wouldn't withstand fire from those lethal blue beams for very long at all. Especially as the _Valiant Watcher_ was already damaged from their earlier concussion missile attack.

A trill came from the console mere seconds after the dreadnought disappeared into hyperspace. "Incoming message from the _Tanganyika,_ " Wevv noted. "Audio only."

"Let's hear what they have to say," Jordmar answered knowing that they didn't really have a choice, especially as R4 was still assessing the extent of the damage that they'd sustained and what – if anything – there loyal astromech could do to repair it.

"On speakers," Wevv answered with a nod as she keyed the comm panel. Immediately the picked up the channel from the alien warship in time to hear a male human voice, speaking in very oddly accented Basic almost as if it was coming from a translator of some type. The whole channel also had a very audible background humming sound to it, indicative of the sheer amount of power that had to be behind it.

"Attention unknown freighter this is the UES _Tanganyika_. Our sensors indicate that your ship is badly damaged do you require assistance? Please, respond. Repeat. Unknown freighter this is the UES _Tanganyika_ , our sensors indicate you ship is badly damaged, do you require assistance? Please, respond."

"Should we reply," Wevv asked a moment before R4 warbled that he had completed his assessment of the damage to the ship. "How bad is it R4?"

R4 warbled back that it was pretty bad. Their starboard ion engine was to all intents and purposes destroyed cutting their acceleration by half. Though the worst damage was to the primary hyperdrive motivator, like the starboard ion engine it was basically destroyed as were the power transfer lines to their backup hyperdrive system. They were to all intents and purposes stuck.

"Guess we don't have a choice do we," Wevv commented.

"Doesn't look like it," Jordmar agreed before using his own console to open a channel to the alien vessel that had saved both their lives. "UES _Tanganyika_ my name is Jordmar Edmodarn, captain of the freighter _Twilight Monsoon._ I thank you for chasing those Black Sun bastards away and gratefully accept your offer of assistance."

"Captain Edmodarn this is Captain Halsey," a new voice answered over the communications link. "You are most welcome. What is the status of your ship and crew, do you have any injuries?"

"We have no casualties, the Black Sun was careful to only target our engines," Jordmar replied. "We do still have some sublight capacity, but it is limited and our hyperdrive is offline."

"Understood I'll send some fighters to tow you to our ship's fold perimeter if that is alright with you," his fellow captain answered. _What's a fold perimeter,_ Jordmar wondered, exchanging a puzzled look with Wevv. In their long career as spacers they'd never heard something like that before. _Guess we'll find out._

"The tow will not be necessary," Jordmar answered "though what do you actually mean by fold perimeter?"

"It's the perimeter of the bubble created by our space fold drives upon activation," the other man answered once again prompting Jordmar and Wevv to exchange glances the same question in their eyes and on their minds. What in the name of the Force was a space fold drive? "Your vessel is unfortunately too large to fit inside our hanger bay, so we will have to take you somewhere where your ship can be repaired properly. You have my assurance you will not be harmed."

"I'm not sure that I understand what you mean by a space fold drive, but I will trust you captain," Jordmar replied knowing he really had little choice. Even if his engines had been working at full capacity he doubted that he would have been able to leave unless Captain Halsey wanted him to. Given the observed range of the _Tanganyika's_ beam weapons the other man could have easily disabled them, or even destroyed them, had he decided that they weren't going anywhere but with him. "How close do I need to get to your ship?"

"Within twenty kilometres."

Jordmar raised an eyebrow even though he knew that the other man wouldn't be able to see it. While it was a huge distance on a planet, twenty kilometres was extremely close in space. While not quite point-blank range, it was still a very close approach to make one that dramatically increased the likelihood of a collision. Not that he intended to collide with anyone as _Twilight Monsoon_ was damaged enough as she was thank you very much.

"I understand," he said at last as he brought the port engine to life at a very low level. "R4 watch the starboard lateral thrusters for me, would you? I don't want them overheating." The astromech warbled an affirmative.

Slowly over the next couple of minutes Jordmar guided his battered ship towards the _Tanganyika,_ barely noticing when a couple of fighters fell into formation with them. He guessed that they were there just in case they went out of control. The warship grew larger and larger outside until she practically filled the space ahead of them. Seeing that he was within the twenty-kilometre radius specified he brought the ship to a halt and turned so they were flanking the alien ship.

"Now what," Wevv wondered.

"I guess we wait," Jordmar answered.

They didn't have to wait very long. Seemingly within a few seconds of them coming to a stop next to her the energy readings coming off the _Tanganyika_ spiked higher than anything he'd ever seen in his life before. Which considering the life he'd led – especially when working with Milo during the Clone Wars – was saying quite a bit. Through the view port he and Wevv watched as a strange whirl of bluish energy – the looked like an antique gyroscope of all things – flashed a few kilometres away before transforming into what appeared to be sphere of frosted glass that completely surrounded both ships and the still deployed fighters. After a second or so the sphere flashed and rippled with rainbow colours before transforming into a tunnel of rapidly moving points of light.

Jordmar exchanged a look with Wevv again. This method of faster than light travel definitely wasn't hyperspace as there was none of the shimmering blue-walled tunnel effect of a hyperspace corridor. Instead it was almost like they were still in normal space, almost aside from a slight shimmering distortion – like rippling water – that broke up the starlight in some way. They were clearly travelling down some kind of conduit or corridor, but it wasn't hyperspace – or at least not in the way that they understood it.

"Caff," Wevv asked breaking the moment knowing that they could both do with a drink after what they just went through. While they would have both liked some alcohol Jordmar never allowed it on the ship not when they were in space anyway, planet side was a different story. Thus, caff would have to do.

"Yes please."

"I'll go make some then."

Wevv stood up and left the cockpit leaving Jordmar alone with R4. Jordmar for his part leaned back in his pilot's chair and just watched the odd display outside the cockpit. He had no idea where Captain Halsey was taking them but after a moment he decided that did not matter. As wherever it was as long as it was away from the Black Sun – who would quickly send more ships to the battle site especially if Xizor really was after Milo's crate – then it was fine with him.

* * *

 **Author Note: Well another chapter bites the dust. Hope you all like the new characters, especially Jordmar and Wevv who are going to have an important role to play in the story from here on out, introduced in this chapter. And of course, the re-introduction – if unseen – of the character of Prince Xizor – from the Legends novel Shadows of the Empire – as an antagonist for both Jordmar and Wevv and now the REF. When the idea of Xizor was mentioned in a conversation of spacebattles I just couldn't resist bringing him back into things.**

 **Next time we see the beginnings of the repercussions of this battle and the final scout cruiser will make a very interesting discovery.**


	10. Chapter 9 v 21

_**A Left Turn at Albuquerque**_

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the characters that I am about to mangle around for my own amusement – sadly all Robotech and Star Wars characters remain the property of Harmony Gold, Disney and Lucasfilm Ltd respectively – I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit from their use. As a result, please keep the legal attack dogs – also known as lawyers – firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give to anybody.**

 **Author Note: This is actually the second version of this chapter that is hopefully much better than the original that its replacing in the story continuity though I am leaving the original up for now as I can always take it down another time. I felt like I needed to do this due to some of the feedback I received originally and from an in depth reread that left me most unhappy with the original especially from the bits where the _Tanganyika_ comes into play.**

* * *

 **Chapter Nine**

 **Independent Freighter Twilight Monsoon**

 **Sometime Later**

Jordmar Edmodarn hummed softly as he brought his beloved ship out of hyperspace for a short cruise between hyperspace lanes as to carry their cargo of medical supplies and industrial mining equipment from Naboo to Sullest required a hyperspace lane change. It would take a few hours to make the journey across the system at sublight to the point where they'd be able to return to hyperspace and complete what promised to be a relatively lucrative voyage. He also did not anticipate any problems acquiring a new cargo after they unloaded their current cargo.

"You sound happy," a warm female voice said from behind him. Jordmar looked over his shoulder to see that his co-pilot/business partner/sometimes lover Wevv Malzin had come into the cockpit of their heavily modified Ghtroc 720 light freighter, a somewhat cheeky grin on her yellowish green Miralian features.

"Should I not be," he asked with the characteristic roguish grin of a Corellian. "We're only one jump away from Sullest and payday. Then it's just a matter of finding a new cargo."

"True though can we please go somewhere nicer than Sullest on our next job," Wevv asked as she slid into the co-pilots seat.

"Hmm I'll see what I can do about that. Where do you fancy Alderaan? Empress Tata?" He didn't say anything about returning to his homeworld as the Imperial nationalisation of the shipyards – that for millennia had been his people's pride and joy – and their support industries had really done a number on the planets environment. The last time he'd been there he'd been hard pressed not to whip out a blaster and shoot some stormtroopers in retribution for what the Empire was doing to his homeworld.

"Alderaan sounds nice it's been a couple of years since we last went there."

"Okay Alderaan it is," Jordmar agreed a moment before a proximity alert went off on his console. Before he could turn to see what, the problem was, a flicker of pseudo motion outside the viewport caught his attention and he looked over to see a dreadnought-class heavy cruiser with Black Sun markings had just dropped out of hyperspace and it was practically right on top of them. "Oh kriff."

"You can say that again," Wevv replied. "What in the Forces name is a Black Sun dreadnought doing here? And how the hell do they even have one?"

Jordmar shrugged his shoulders as he had absolutely no answers. The Empire was usually quite thorough in ensuring no private organisation or enterprise had access to any warships above frigate classification. A cruiser-class vessel – even one as ancient but still extremely potent as the dreadnought-class heavy cruisers – being in the hands of an organisation like Black Sun was thus a very strict no-no. After all the last thing the Imperials wanted was for any private organisation to have the means of giving the slowly growing rebellion anymore heavy warships than they already had. _Maybe there is truth to the rumours going through some of the cantina's that Xizor has entered into a business relationship with the Emperor it would certainly explain how and why they have cruiser class vessels,_ he thought.

At that moment a dull thud followed by a soft shudder ran through the deck. Jordmar didn't even have to look to know that the dreadnought had just locked onto them with a tractor beam. "I don't know as nothing in our cargo warrants them doing this to us, especially with a dreadnought," he replied.

"No, it doesn't. Do you think they're after the other thing?"

"Possibly, especially if the rumours are true and the Dark Prince is sucking up to the Emperor," he agreed exchanging a worried but determined look with Wevv. The item in question was a crate that had been entrusted to their care at the end of the Clone Wars by Milo Thrain – a Jedi Sentinel who'd worked with them all through the Clone Wars using the _Twilight Monsoon_ as his transport rather than requisitioning a warship – when the man had been dying after being shot by the three Clone Troopers who'd also been part of the crew during the war except at the end when Palpatine issued Order 66. As they both recalled Milo hadn't gone down easily – as unlike most Jedi he had preferred body armour to itchy robes – and taken out two of the clones before the last one managed to get him. Though the clone's triumph hadn't lasted long before a bolt from Jordmar's heavy pistol ended the turncoat trooper's life.

They'd never opened the crate in question but had kept it securely locked away as the mortally wounded Milo had asked before his life expired.

"We can't let them take it," Wevv commented. "Milo died to protect whatever is in that crate there's no way I'm letting some trumped up Falleen gangster who maybe or maybe not be in bed with our 'beloved Emperor' get his slimy hands on it."

"Agreed," Jordmar replied with a nod as he started tapping various controls powering up the _Twilight Monsoon's_ weapons systems and beginning to power up the shield generator – being a military model, albeit a clone wars model it would take several seconds to build up enough power running as it was off an upgraded civilian power plant – though he wouldn't be able to raise the shields while the dreadnought had them in its tractor beam.

"Okay weapons and shields are powering up," he said. "Go back and get R4 out of his recharge slot would you then man the turret."

"On it," Wevv replied as she stood up and raced out of the cockpit to first get there astromech out of his charging station and then climb up into the dorsal turret that housed the dual heavy blaster cannons that were their main – but not only as thanks to a combination of Milo and Jordmar's weariness of Imperials – but not only armament.

As she left the cockpit the radio crackled to life. "Freighter _Twilight Monsoon_ this is Vigo Melan of the Black Sun dreadnought _Valiant Watcher_. Power down your weapons and prepare to be boarded and you will not be harmed," a Falleen voice said over the radio.

 _Yeah like I'd believe one of you reptilian bastards,_ Jordmar thought as he kept his eyes focused on the viewport and the dreadnought that was growing bigger and bigger outside. In seconds the dreadnought would be in position to latch onto their dorsal docking port than a score of Black Sun mercenaries – who were well known for their brutality – would pour into the ship. He knew well that they wouldn't hesitate to kill him where he sat and take Wevv – who was quite attractive even by human standards – as a new slave either for the pleasure of their dreadnought's commander, Xizor himself or worse sell her into the galactic slave circuit – which had ballooned in size since the Empire took over.

"Not if I can help it," he muttered to himself as he flicked a control causing two small hatches – one on either side of the cockpit – to open and a target grid to appear on one of his screens. Along with an infographic that showed clearly that their battery of twelve concussion missiles were armed. Moving the crosshairs on the target grid he locked onto the dreadnought. "Eat this," he muttered as he thumbed the trigger causing a shiver of recoil to run through the ship as two concussion missiles were sent flying into space.

Instantly the missiles, before they could even start their own engines, sped towards the dreadnought as they instantly became caught in her tractor beam. The _Valiant Watcher's_ crew had no chance to react as the two missiles ion engines engaged further boosting their speed as they slammed into the ship at virtually point-blank range. Both missiles impacting the aft engineering section of the dreadnought whose shields – set as they were to the default ray shield configuration to better repel turbolaser and other energy weapons fire – offered no resistance as the two missiles – their speed increased to beyond their normal level by the dual actions of their engines and the tractor beams pull – punched deep into the armour band before detonating.

The effect was dramatic.

A visible shockwave rippled along the underside of the dreadnought, titanium-durasteel armour rippling like water with some plates snapping off and spinning into space. The force of the blasts was channelled by the armour into/then through the pressure hull and severing a primary power conduit. The result of which sent arcs and sheets of raw, white-hot electricity from its hypermatter reactors through the aft lower decks flash frying engineers alive and causing droids to explode as the rampaging electrons subjected them to massive overloads. Secondary explosions erupted, spreading the sudden mayhem inside the _Valiant Watcher_ even further, as damaged systems and conduits overloaded and blew out.

The _Twilight Monsoon_ shivered slightly as the tractor beam tethering them to the dreadnought released as the emitters and beam generator lost power. Jordmar immediately turned on the shields and gunned the sublight engines to full power and banked away from the dreadnought, heading for the safety of open space like a spooked mynock. He was after all well aware that while his missiles had inflicted serious damage to the _Valiant Watcher_ she would only be helpless for a short time. Soon her damage control crews would shut down the ruptured conduit, extinguish the electrical fires that had no doubt started before rerouting power and then the dreadnought would be after them turbolasers blazing. There only hope really was to outrun her as for all their strength dreadnought-class heavy cruisers were not exactly the fastest of capital ships. In fact, they were well known to be quite slow and cumbersome.

He just hoped that the _Valiant Watcher_ wasn't one of the ex-Imperial models of the dreadnought-class. A few moments later that hope was dashed as the sensors warned of multiple small contacts leaving the dreadnought. One of the biggest changes that the Empire had made to the old design, during the relatively short time they'd used it before phasing it out in favour of there newer Vindicator-class heavy cruisers, which allowed the cruiser to carry a squadron or two of starfighters. His scanners immediately identified the six fighters as V-Wing fighters a design which had entered service with the Republic in the last few months of the Clone Wars and which had served the Empire for the first few years of its existence before the TIE line was developed.

"Oh, kriffing hell," he muttered knowing that despite being small the V-Wing was quite a potent little starfighter. "Wevv."

"I see them," Wevv called back even as she rotated the turret to face the incoming fighters and pressed the trigger sending coruscating red bolts of superheated ionized tibana gas flying into space towards the approaching fighters. The lead fighter had obviously not been expecting to be attacked immediately by the freighter – or for his prey to have such heavy energy weapons – as it ran straight into her shots. The heavy bolts immediately punching through its shields to turn the fighter and its pilot into a plume of vaporised metal and torn fragments no bigger than a playing card.

"Nice shot," Jordmar called up to his co-pilot as he began taking evasive action even as the V-Wing formation broke up as the pilots attempted to sort themselves out into a new attack pattern following the sudden death of their leader. The sound of their astromech R4-D7 entering the cockpit caught his attention. "R4 interface with the navi-computer and start calculating an emergency hyperspace jump."

R4 warbled an affirmative and rolled over to one of the terminals and plugged himself in. It was at that moment that the fighters – apparently having sorted themselves out – blew in their light laser cannons raking the _Twilight Monsoon_ making her shields flash with static as they absorbed and dissipated the energy of the plasma bolts. A soft shiver ran through the deck but other than that they were unharmed.

Jordmar allowed himself a slight smile at that as from the way the V-Wings wobbled slightly their pilots were surprised by the resilience of the _Twilight Monsoon's_ shields, obviously having expected them to standard civilian grade shields which would have sustained serious damage under that barrage. Not took it and shrugged it off. There hesitation cost them as Wevv took advantage of it to turn another fighter into a cloud of debris.

Shaking off their shock the Black Sun's mercenary pilots attacked again. Raking the _Twilight Monsoon_ again and again. Wevv fired back, though most of her shots missed though she did score a glancing hit on one fighter making its shields flare with electrostatic strain and making the craft momentarily stagger in space with the transmitted kinetic force. It was all the time she needed to tag the fighter with a full-on hit sending it to its doom.

Obviously angry and frightened now – as this particular prey was showing itself to have a tough hide and very sharp teeth and claws with which to protect itself – the mercenary pilots attacked again this time focusing all their fire on the freighter's aft deflector shield. Immediately warnings began to flash on Jordmar's screens warning that the aft shield was starting to corrode, and he instantly banked to try and shake off the fighters. Only for the damned things to use their superior agility to stick like glue to his rear end.

"Wevv," Jordmar called back as the ship shook fiercely under the heavy laser assault.

"I'm trying Jord," Wevv yelled back as she endeavoured to shoot the fighters down, but they were staying mostly out of her arc having figured out that getting into her range was certain death for them. "But they're staying out of my arc."

"Stand by," Jordmar replied before abruptly killing the engines and firing his reverse thrusters at full power causing the V-Wings to shoot past them, the move catching them completely off guard. Almost immediately the pilots scrambled to get out of the firing arc of the dorsal turret again, most made it though Wevv was still able to nail two of them sending the pilots into the eternal embrace of the Force. "Nice one."

"Thanks, but I don't think they're going to fall for that again," Wevv replied as Jordmar reengaged the main engines and attempted to pull away from the momentarily disorganized fighters.

"Probably not," Jordmar agreed. "R4 how's that hyperspace course coming?"

The droid warbled back that he had one calculated. It was only a short jump, but it would get them to the hyperspace lane, from there it would be a simple matter to escape before the dreadnought and its fighters could catch up with them.

"Great work R4," Jordmar praised as he stabilized the ship for the jump to hyperspace.

Unfortunately, at that moment their luck ran out as the fighters, smarting from their losses and detecting that the _Twilight Monsoon's_ hyperdrive was powering up for a jump, attacked once again. As before they focused their firepower on the engines and broke through the weakened aft shields to land blasts on the engines. Alarms went off in the cockpit as Jordmar was almost thrown out of his chair as the starboard ion engine violently flamed out from the damage causing his beloved ship to begin corkscrewing out of control from the sudden uneven thrust.

Grunting he fought with the controls and after a few seconds of effort managed to get _Twilight Monsoon_ back under control.

"How bad is it," Wevv called from the turret.

"Starboard engines out. Oh, kriff and we've lost the hyperdrive as well," Jordmar replied a profound sense of defeat falling on him like a smothering blanket. The Black Sun had them now.

"You know what we need to do," Wevv said. "We cannot let Xizor get his hands-on Milo's crate, especially as he's certain to give it to the Emperor."

Jordmar sighed. "I know," he said knowing the only way to keep the crate from eventually falling into the hands of the Emperor and to save himself and Wevv from a fate worse than death – as Xizor was sure to make them pay dearly for giving the forces he sent against them so much trouble – and that was to go out on their own terms. And besides if Milo had been right then when they died they'd see him again in the infinite realms of the Force. "R4 on my command prepare to overload the fuel cells."

The astromech warbled sadly but prepared to do as his master – who had widely boasted to other astromech's to be the best master a droid could ever ask for – asked. However, before he could begin the process of removing all the safeties on the main power cores fuel cells a new event occurred as the radio came to life.

"Attention unknown cruiser," a male human voice, speaking with an accent unlike anything Jordmar had ever heard before, said. "This is the United Earth Ship _Tanganyika_ , you are engaged in potentially piratical activities. Identify and explain yourself immediately or we will be forced to engage you."

"Who the hell is that," Wevv asked having heard the communication.

"I have no idea but looks like the Black Sun are going after them," Jordmar replied as he saw the surviving V-Wings break off from there perimeter and advance towards where – according to scanners – a warship of unknown configuration was located. "Whoever they are they might have bought us the time we need. R4 hold on blowing the fuel cells a moment, instead try and get the hyperdrive back online."

R4 immediately warbled an extremely pleased affirmative and started a diagnostic on the hyperdrive. After all he would need to know exactly what was wrong with the drive if he was to stand any chance of successfully repairing it.

* * *

 **UES Tanganyika**

 **A Few Minutes Earlier**

Sitting in the quiet confines of his ready room Captain Kaidan Halsey resisted, just, the impulse to sigh as he worked his way through the incessant amounts of paperwork – or rather its modern electronic descendant – that came with commanding a starship. Thankfully the load on him was relatively light today, the fact that they were in another galaxy who knew how many billions of light years from their own meant that most of the more bureaucratic make-work paperwork could be quietly shelved for later leaving only the more important bits for him to deal with.

Which was still quite a considerable amount.

He was just starting to read through a report on the state of the ship's missile stores – both for their single squadron of Alpha fighters and the _Tanganyika's_ own missile and torpedo batteries – when the desk comm unit signalled for his attention. Instantly relieved to have something other than paperwork to do he reached forward and touched a button on the terminal. "Yes?" he asked.

"Sorry to disturb you sir but we're coming up on our first defold point," his XO Lieutenant Commander Veronica Mars reported from the bridge. _This soon,_ Kaidan thought before blinking as his eyes fell upon the wall chronometer which showed he'd actually been doing his paperwork for the better part of an hour. More than enough time for the _Tanganyika_ – equipped as she was with the latest generation of the hyperspace fold system – to cross the thirty-two thousand, two hundred and sixty light years that was the farthest distance a ship could safely go in a single fold. It was about two thirds of the way to the planet they'd been tasked with surveying as a possible new home for their people, should it be determined that it was impossible for them to get back home.

Something that he knew was very likely to be the case since analysis of star charts had shown that this galaxy – which according to the star charts recovered from the _Kimbala_ was called Corusca – definitely was not part of their local group of galaxies. The science divisions were still in the process of trying to figure out exactly where they were in relation to the Milky Way, only then would they be able to determine if it was possible to travel across the great vast darkness of intergalactic space in any reasonable space of time. Like anyone with any experience in astronavigation he didn't think they would be able to find a way home, though of course they still had to at the very least try.

"I'll be right their commander," he replied into the comm unit as he stood up. After taking a moment to retrieve his uniform jacket from the back of the chair and putting it on he left his ready room and made the short walk onto the bridge of his beloved ship. And not for the first time noting how different it was to on some of the older ships he'd served on over the years being white panelled, surprisingly spacious for a warship as small as a Garfish and far higher tech with holographic projector fields having long since replaced the dials and TFT screens of the older ships.

"Status," he asked as he made his way to the command chair and sat down. Which never ceased to make him feel somewhat like a king as the command chair on the bridge of modern Terran warships was not only at the back of the bridge but on a slightly elevated platform over everyone else, allowing a ships master or mistress to have clear lines of sight to both the holographic HUD's floating in their projector fields but the bridge windows as well. Though the latter was purely a side effect as in battle, despite what pre-Robotech science fiction had liked to show, a ship's crew rarely actually saw the enemy capital ships that they were firing at as anything more than distant points of light. Which was fully understandable when you considered that at three hundred thousand kilometres even the biggest ship would be all but invisible against the darkness of even interplanetary space. A discovery during the First Robotech War that had done in the old romantic notions of space combat – at least between capital warships.

"Sir we've reached our defold point," the helmswoman reported, "commencing hyperspace defold manoeuvre in three… two… one."

Kaidan nodded and leaned back in the command chair as around him the crew began the process of navigating the ship through its return to normal space. A shiver and a thrum of incalculable power ran through the entire ship, seeming to make the very air itself vibrate, a microsecond before a shimmering wall seemingly appeared outside the ship as the fold bubble and the ship within it burst back into normal space from a hyperspatial wormhole. A flash of bluish energy – that everyone would always compare to a gyroscope in appearance – appeared as the fold sphere dissipated and the _Tanganyika_ and everyone aboard her fully integrated back into normal space-time. He couldn't help but smile at how smooth the transition with the newest model fold engine was in comparison to their older drives. With the first- and second-generation space fold drives the transition to and from hyperspace could be… well… somewhat bumpy to put it mildly.

The sudden wailing of a proximity alert instantly drew him out of those thoughts. "What is it," he demanded.

"Sir sensors are picking up a number of contacts on a bearing of zero, zero, one mark zero, one, two distance two hundred thousand kilometres," sensors reported. _No wonder they triggered the proximity alert,_ Kaidan thought as two hundred thousand kilometres was well within their weapons range. Thus, any unknown vessel would be immediately tagged by the sensors as a potential threat.

"What do you make of them," he asked hoping against hope that the ships were not Imperial. They'd already had more than enough encounters with them since coming to this galaxy and while he didn't fear any known Imperial warship – all their encounters so far had shown they had little to fear from them having both superior armour and weapons to the Imperials – it would be extremely inconvenient to say the least. Especially as they would certainly be forced into an engagement as it took several minutes for even the most modern hyperspace fold drives to complete a cool down and repower cycle after propelling the ship so far.

"Scans confirm they're not Imperial or at least not any Imperial design we've seen before," sensors reported. "It looks like one small vessel that appears to be a freighter of some type. The others are one vessel around heavy cruiser size and a dozen fighters of unknown design. The fighters appear to be attacking the freighter, the cruiser is hanging back it appears to have been damaged."

"Look's like we might have stumbled on either a pirate raid or a police action of some kind," Kaidan mused aloud.

"Sir the freighter's engines have been hit. They're losing speed," sensors reported. "The fighter's have broken off their attack and are now forming a perimeter around the freighter."

"Should we intervene sir," Veronica asked.

"And do what possibly get interfere in what could potentially be a perfectly legitimate police action against smugglers," Kaidan questioned. "Still we need to find out either way. Sparks send a challenge and identification request."

"Aye sir," his communications officer replied pressing both the command to open a broad-spectrum transmission, so the other two vessels would have no choice but to hear them and the command to tie in the translation matrix that had been developed just before that Imperial fleet attacked them. As their challenge/identification request wouldn't get them anywhere if the unknowns couldn't understand a word that they were saying. A moment later his console screens indicated that the transmission was open. "Attention unknown cruiser, this is the United Earth Ship _Tanganyika_. You are engaged in potential piratical activities. Identify and explain yourself immediately or we will be forced to engage you."

The response from the unknowns was immediate.

"Captain the unknown fighters are breaking off and advancing towards us," sensors reported. "They're approaching on an attack vector."

Kaidan sighed. "Probably pirates then," he said as he could think of no other reason for the fighters to immediately come at them on an attack course, well unless they really were Imperials. In either case his duty was clear as they were clearly threatening his ship and crew, or trying to anyway as so far, the weapons they'd encountered in this galaxy had been too weak to do more than cosmetic damage to their ships armour. "Sparks send a message to those fighters, tell them to break off immediately or be destroyed. Weapons stand by interceptor missiles. If those fighters don't break off their aggressive approach blast them out of the sky."

"Aye sir," came the response from both officers.

"Attention incoming fighters," Sparks said. "You are approaching us on a hostile vector. If you do not break off immediately you will be fired upon and destroyed. You have thirty seconds to comply."

Kaidan kept his eyes on the tactical holoscreens which showed the fighters getting closer and closer. He honestly wasn't surprised that they weren't backing off in spite of their warnings of what would happen if they did not. So far in this galaxy nobody seemed willing to back off against their superior force. _And it's not like those fighters can't scan us and see they're overmatched as our shadow device is currently switched off,_ he thought. Inevitably the thirty seconds Sparks had given the fighters to break off their aggressive approach passed, and they were still coming.

Immediately a faint shiver or recoil ran through the deck as one of their pop-up defensive missile launchers fired sending ten Mark-III Foxfire interceptor missiles towards the half dozen incoming fighters. The hostile fighters instantly detected the missiles homing in on them even as the seeker heads of the missiles locked onto them and accelerated the weapons to terminal attack speed. Instantly the fighters began firing in an attempt to knock down the incoming missiles. An interceptor died, the victim of a plasma bolt, but the rest slammed into the fighters and detonated immolating them in a furious barrage of plasma detonations. _The poor fools,_ Kaidan thought as the fighters had stood no chance against their defensive missiles.

"We're being hailed by the cruiser," Sparks added.

 _Maybe were finally getting somewhere,_ Kaidan thought though he did doubt it. He was now soundly convinced that whoever these jokers were they weren't any form of legitimate law enforcement organisation but were almost certainly pirates. And in his experience the greed of piracy and the common sense not to approach and attempt confrontation with a fully armed and operational robotech warship did not go hand in hand.

"Alright put it through," he said.

Instantly a projector field activated and a holographic screen pixeled into existence bringing in an image of the alien bridge. It was very plane looking with a mixture of different races manning consoles along the walls of the room, though a handful were freestanding. There appeared to be a faint haze in the air of the cruisers bridge, almost like smoke and he wondered if it was from the damage the cruiser had already sustained. Though what immediately grabbed his attention was the green-skinned reptilian looking humanoid in what was clearly the command chair. The alien spoke immediately.

"This is Vigo Melan of the Black Sun commanding the dreadnought _Valiant Watcher_. Your presence here is unwanted. Leave now or I will destroy you," the alien said with the arrogant confidence of someone who was used to being obeyed.

"Sir the cruiser is turning and advancing towards us," sensors reported. "We're picking up targeting scanners." _They have got to be kidding. We just swatted their fighters like annoying insects and they still think they can threaten us,_ Kaidan thought as he glanced at another screen. Which now showed scan data of the alien cruiser, it really was nothing remarkable and weapons wise was pretty weak in comparison to their own.

"I think not," Kaidan replied looking back into the video pickup. "You and your ship are engaged in pirate activities Vigo Melan. Not to mention your fighters just attempted to attack me. In both instances I am well within my rights to destroy you."

"You dare to threaten the Black Sun. Destroy me and we will hunt you to the ends of the galaxy."

"Big words I've heard them before from a thousand different pirates and would-be warlords it's never frightened me before and it doesn't now," Kaidan replied and indeed he had as not all the Zentraedi or Tirolian Triumvirate Clones who'd served the Robotech Masters had allied with them after the First and Second Robotech Wars. Some had turned to piracy and others had attempted to carve little fiefdoms for themselves out of the ashes of the Robotech Masters empire. They were invariably hostile to the REF and the Sentinel's Alliance, though were frequently more of an irritating pest than a serious threat. Though that didn't stop them talking big and usually getting themselves killed whenever they pushed their luck too far and Admiral Hunter or the Council lost their patience with them.

From what he'd seen so far from this joker Black Sun would be no different. It certainly wouldn't be something that they hadn't dealt with many times before.

"You will have no idea what you are dealing with," Melan threatened. Kaidan folded his arms over his chest and didn't even bother to answer verbally just put an expression of complete unconcern on his face. His somewhat apathetic response to the threat made the aliens skin flush a warm reddish-orange in fury. "Then you die a fool."

With that the alien broke the communications link between them.

"What an idiot does he really think he's a threat to us," Veronica said.

"Probably criminals like him always think that they are more powerful than they are," Kaidan replied. "Status of the _Valiant Watcher_?"

"Still closing sir. From what we know of this galaxies weapons technology they will not be able to fire upon us till they're within a hundred thousand kilometres."

"Are we going to let them shoot at us sir," Veronica asked him,

"No, I'm not. It is time that Vigo Melan learns what happens when you play with fire. Prepare the synchro cannon – fire when ready."

"Aye sir."

* * *

An outside observer would have immediately seen the profile of the _Tanganyika_ change as along a horizontal line the front third of the ship split apart, the two half's moving up and down in a manner reminiscent of a Zentraedi monitor. In less than a second the two halves locked in their new positions and the barrel of one of the most powerful weapons in the REF's entire arsenal slid forward into firing position.

Instantly glimmering subatomic began to gather and collect in the projector matrix at the front of the cannon. In microseconds the initial handful of particles turned into a torrent as the synchrotronic particle accelerators – from which the weapon took its name – accelerated two separate streams of subatomic particles to near light speed and slammed them together in the collector/projector matrix forming into a brilliant white bubble of destructive energy. Which instantly transformed into a brilliant bluish-white lance of energy that shot towards the _Valiant Watcher_ at near light speed.

Faster than anyone could possibly react the coruscating lance of pure destruction slammed into the dreadnought-class heavy cruiser, taking her straight on the bow and punching right through cutting right through the entire ship with an ease that was as contemptuous as it was terrifying. The dreadnoughts shield and legendary tough armour and structure offering absolutely no resistance to the immensely powerful beam that microseconds after hitting the bow exploded out of the back of the engine block. The beam vanished and for a moment out of time the gutted hulk of the dreadnought held together before the entire ship disintegrated into a plume of superheated plasma and dust.

* * *

"Target destroyed sir."

"So, I see," Kaidan replied as the brilliant death flash of the _Valiant Watcher_ faded from the bridge windows. The whirring of powerful motors echoed through the hull as the ship resumed her normal configuration. "What's the status of the freighter?"

"They're still their sir no change in attitude," sensors answered.

"Sparks contact them offer them our assistance."

"Aye sir."

* * *

 **Twilight Monsoon**

Silence reigned in the cockpit as Jordmar stared in complete shock and disbelief at the rapidly spreading plasma cloud that mere seconds earlier had been a dreadnought-class heavy cruiser. Besides him Wevv, who'd come down from the turret, was just as shocked. The power that they had just seen displayed was way beyond anything that they had ever thought possible and they'd seen some very nasty weapons during the Clone Wars.

"By the Force," Wevv breathed breaking the shocked silence. "How can that be possible? Who the hell are these people not even the Imperials can destroy a dreadnought-class cruiser so easily."

"No idea," Jordmar replied more than a little intimidated by that weapon which, if he was right about it, could rip apart any known warship in the galaxy with the same terrifying ease with which it had utterly annihilated the Black Sun ship. He just hoped that, whatever it was, the Imperials a) never found out about it and b) never got their grubby little hands on it.

A trill came from the console shocking both of them. Wevv quickly checked to see what it was they were being alerted to now. "We're being hailed by the _Tanganyika_ ," she said with some surprise.

"Let's hear what they have to say," Jordmar answered knowing that they didn't really have a choice, especially as R4 was still assessing the extent of the damage that they'd sustained and what – if anything – there loyal astromech could do to repair it.

"On speakers," Wevv answered with a nod as she keyed the comm panel. Immediately the picked up the channel from the alien warship in time to hear the same male human voice that they'd heard on the initial communication from the alien vessel. The human was speaking in very oddly accented Basic almost as if he was speaking through a translator of some type, though without the mechanical overtones that would indicate a protocol droid. The whole channel also had a very audible background humming sound to it, indicative of the sheer amount of power that had to be behind it.

"Attention unknown freighter this is the UES _Tanganyika_. Our sensors indicate that your ship is badly damaged do you require assistance? Please, respond. Repeat. Unknown freighter this is the UES _Tanganyika_ , our sensors indicate you ship is badly damaged, do you require assistance? Please, respond."

"Should we reply," Wevv asked a moment before R4 warbled that he had completed his assessment of the damage to the ship. "How bad is it R4?"

R4 warbled back that it was pretty bad. Their starboard ion engine was to all intents and purposes destroyed cutting their acceleration by half. Though the worst damage was to the primary hyperdrive motivator, like the starboard ion engine it was basically destroyed as were the power transfer lines to their backup hyperdrive system. They were to all intents and purposes stuck.

"Guess we don't have a choice do we," Wevv commented.

"Doesn't look like it," Jordmar agreed before using his own console to open a channel to the alien vessel that had saved both their lives. "UES _Tanganyika_ my name is Jordmar Edmodarn, captain of the freighter _Twilight Monsoon._ I thank you for getting rid of those Black Sun bastards and gratefully accept your offer of assistance."

"Captain Edmodarn this is Captain Halsey," a new voice answered over the communications link. "You are most welcome. What is the status of your ship and crew, do you have any injuries?"

"We have no casualties, the Black Sun was careful to only target our engines," Jordmar replied. "We do still have some sublight capacity, but it is limited and our hyperdrive is offline as a result we are kind of stuck here. You wouldn't happen to have a spare hyperspace motivator, would you?"

"No, I'm afraid that I don't our FTL technology works very differently to yours," Captain Halsey answered before pausing as if he was thinking about something. "However, if you can provide us with the specifications for a hyperspace motivator my people could assemble one for you and ship it here."

"My astromech can provide you with the specifications but we cannot stay here for very long," Jordan pointed out, "the Black Sun will soon miss their ship and send more to find it. We only have a couple of hours at the most before another ship arrives."

"I see. Fortunately, there is a solution you said you still have some sublight capabilities?"

"Yes, our port ion engine is still functional," Jordmar answered.

"Excellent I need you to approach my ship, get within twenty kilometres of us before coming to a dead halt."

"I can do that but why that specific distance?"

"Because you will then be well within range of my ships fold sphere," Halsey answered, "allowing us to space fold with you to another nearby location and wait there while the replacement parts are fabricated for you. Do you know any locations say within a hundred or so light years that don't get any traffic?"

Jordmar exchanged a puzzled look with Wevv. Both having the exact same question on there minds. Just what was a space fold? It was obviously some form of FTL travel but what exactly was it and would it be dangerous for their already battered ship? As for a hiding place the most obvious one was the Calanda Expanse a vast interstellar nursery two hundred light years from here and far off any of the more active hyperspace lanes. The only risk of going there would be potentially bumping into a pod of Purgil drawn to feed off the gasses in the vast nebula complex or birth a calf near the radiant heat of a young sun, which would be infinitely preferable to another encounter with the Black Sun.

"There is a place we can go it's called the Calanda Expanse and it's a vast nebula complex two hundred light years rim ward from here," he answered at last before entering the command into the computer to transmit the coordinates of the Calanda Expanse to the _Tanganyika_. "I'm sending you the coordinates for the outermost edge of the expanse we should be safe there as it's a long way from any active hyperspace lane. But captain what is a space fold? Is it dangerous."

"Coordinates received, and no space folding is not dangerous its just our method of faster than light space travel it has been used for centuries without any major incidents," Halsey answered. "Based on the coordinates you just sent us it will only take five minutes to reach the Calanda Expanse."

 _Two hundred light years in just five minutes that's fast,_ Jordmar thought, even with the best hyperdrive crossing that distance so fast outside of one of the major hyperspace lanes wasn't possible. A few dozen light years yes but not a few hundred. Plus, he got the feeling that this space folding was unaffected by anomalies and conditions in normal space that would have forced him to take a very roundabout route to the Calanda Expanse if he'd ever had cause to take the _Twilight Monsoon_ there.

"I understand. I will head for your ship now," Jordmar said at last.

"Excellent once we reach the Expanse I invite you to dock with us. I believe we will have a great deal to talk about."

"I look forward to it," Jordmar replied. "Captain Edmodarn out."

With that he closed the channel and carefully brought there one remaining engine to life. With a few precise bursts from the RCS thrusters he brought his battered and battle-scarred ship around and began heading towards the _Tanganyika_ moving at a virtual crawl compared to how his ship could normally move. He couldn't help but feel an ache in his heart for the damage she'd sustained.

"Are you sure this is a good idea," Wevv asked softly getting an agreeing warble from R4. "After all we really don't know anything about these people."

"No, I'm not and your right we don't," Jordmar admitted. "But we don't have a choice do we as its either go with them or stay here and wait for more Black Sun to show up."

"True," Wevv agreed reluctantly. "We do not have a choice."

Jordmar just nodded and focused on his driving. With the damage to the engines it was taking practically all his concentration to keep the _Twilight Monsoon_ on an even keel. Slowly over the next few minutes they drew closer and closer to the alien vessel that had saved them from the Black Sun and in the process swatted a heavy cruiser like it was an annoying insect. Finally, though he brought them to a halt within twenty kilometres of the alien vessel so that it completely dominated space ahead of them. Then with a few RCS bursts brought them sideways on.

"So now what?" Wevv asked as he released the controls and leaned back with a sigh.

"I guess we wait," Jordmar answered.

They didn't have to wait very long. Seemingly within a few seconds of them coming to a stop next to her the energy readings coming off the _Tanganyika_ spiked higher than anything he'd ever seen in his life before. Which considering the life he'd led – especially when working with Milo during the Clone Wars – was saying quite a bit. Through the view port he and Wevv watched as a strange whirl of bluish energy – the looked like an antique gyroscope of all things – flashed a few kilometres away before transforming into what appeared to be sphere of frosted glass that completely surrounded both ships and the still deployed fighters. After a second or so the sphere flashed and rippled with rainbow colours before transforming into a tunnel of rapidly moving points of light.

Jordmar exchanged a look with Wevv again. This method of faster than light travel definitely wasn't hyperspace as there was none of the shimmering blue-walled tunnel effect of a hyperspace corridor. Instead it was almost like they were still in normal space, almost aside from a slight shimmering distortion – like rippling water – that broke up the starlight in some way. They were clearly travelling down some kind of conduit or corridor, but it wasn't hyperspace – or at least not in the way that they understood it.

"Caff," Wevv asked breaking the moment knowing that they could both do with a drink after what they just went through. While they would have both liked some alcohol Jordmar never allowed it on the ship not when they were in space anyway, planet side was a different story. Thus, caff would have to do.

"Yes please."

"I'll go make some then."

Wevv stood up and left the cockpit leaving Jordmar alone with R4. Jordmar for his part leaned back in his pilot's chair and just watched the odd display outside the cockpit. He had no idea what Captain Halsey wanted to talk to him and Wevv about once they reached the Calanda Expanse but after a moment he decided that did not matter. The man had saved them from the cruel clutches of Xizor's henchmen and in the process earned from him something that was very rare to come by in the galaxy these days…

…trust.


	11. Chapter 10

_**A Left Turn at Albuquerque**_

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the characters that I am about to mangle around for my own amusement – sadly all Robotech and Star Wars characters remain the property of Harmony Gold, Disney and Lucasfilm Ltd respectively – I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit from their use. As a result, please keep the legal attack dogs – also known as lawyers – firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give to anyone.**

* * *

 **Chapter Ten**

 **SDF-3 Pioneer**

 **Orbiting Hoth**

"You did what?"

Admiral Rick Hunter stared in a mixture of shock and disbelief at the image floating in a projector field above his ready room desk. Standing just behind and to the side of him Lisa was equally startled at the report that had just been presented to them by the captain of the _Tanganyika_ , one of the three light cruisers dispatched from the fleet to survey possible new locations for the fleet to space fold to. Locations that would be more secure than this system, which was uncomfortably close a known tibana gas mining operation, and hopefully be host to an uninhabited but habitable planet that could at best become a new temporary base of operations for the fleet and at worst – if they failed to find a way home – become the site of the first Terran colony in this galaxy.

They definitely had not been sent out to get into a fight with anybody.

On the holoscreen Captain Halsey winced at Rick's question. "We destroyed a cruiser weight pirate vessel sir," the much younger man, really barely into his thirties, replied. It was clear from the look in the young – but not uncommonly so as the latest generations of Terrans had had to grow up fast, the days of waiting for the passage of years to season commanders had died long ago swept away in the quantum fires of the Rain of Death – man's eyes that he knew that he had violated his orders in destroying the pirate vessel. But also, that he believed he had done the only right thing that he could.

"Explain to me how exactly that came about captain," Rick replied keeping his voice calm and collected as he would give the younger REF officer a chance to justify himself and his actions before reaming him out for disobeying his orders about not getting into fights.

"Sir we'd just completed our first defold operation and were waiting for the fold drive to complete its cool down and repower cycle when our sensors detected two ships and a number of non-transformable fighters about two hundred megametres from our defold point," Halsey answered. "They were far too close for us to pass by undetected."

 _Especially as, that close, someone would have to be blind and deaf not to notice the gravitational disturbance and alpha wave phase shifts in the hyper/normal space boundary that accompany a space fold,_ Rick thought knowing at that close a range, well within conventional weapons range, that there would be nothing to be gained in transferring power from regenerating the fold system to the shadow device as the _Tanganyika_ would have already been detected. "Continue," he prompted.

"The larger of the two ships and the fighters appeared to be attacking the smaller ship which appeared to be a freighter. When we sent a standard identification request the fighters immediately began advancing towards us on an attack vector. We immediately started hailing them with cease and desist warnings, but they ignored us and continued their aggressive approach."

"At which point you shot them down," Lisa finished for him exchanging a knowing and understanding look with Rick on the matter. Halsey had done everything right with the fighter's approach, warning them that defensive action would be taken if they continued to aggressively approach his ship. Any commander in the REF would have done the exact same thing in such a situation only firing either with lasers or more likely Foxfire interceptors when they refused to acknowledge or react to the defensive warnings.

"Yes ma'am. After our missiles took out the fighters their mothership finally seemed to take us seriously and hailed us," Halsey continued. "They identified themselves as belonging to a group known as the Black Sun and basically made the usual demands such groups make and the usual 'we'll hunt you down' threats. As per standing orders and protocol I did not accede in any way to their demands. At which point they broke off contact and began advancing towards us to attack and so I had our synchro cannon destroy them."

"And the freighter that was being attacked?" Rick asked even as he resisted, just, the impulse to scowl in disapproval over the use of the _Tanganyika's_ light synchro cannon to destroy the pirate vessel instead of her conventional anti-ship beam cannons. Beam cannons that, from what they had seen so far, at full power would have little difficulty in tearing most known warships in this galaxy apart. Inwardly he shook his head as Halsey's attitude with the synchro cannon was an all too common one in the ships of their modern fleet and while it had its place against threats like the Invid – it was after all better to pick off their carriers and the thankfully rare supercarriers from extreme range with heavy weapons before they could start deploying their swarms of suicidal aggressive parasite craft than let them advance to conventional weapons range and face the deploying swarms of battle mecha – it wasn't really necessary in this galaxy. He made a mental note to draw up some new rules of engagement for this galaxy to emphasise that the synchro cannon was – like reflex missiles – only to be used as a weapon of last resort in combat.

"After we destroyed the pirate vessel, we noted that the freighter was adrift with notable damage to her propulsion systems. We hailed them and offered assistance," Halsey answered. "The freighter in question is apparently called the _Twilight Monsoon_ commanded by a human male named Jordmar Edmodarn. They accepted our offer of help, but they tell me that they need a new hyperspace motivator – whatever that is – though they'll provide the specs for us to manufacture it for them along with the specs to rebuild their damaged sublight engine."

 _Huh this could work to our advantage,_ Rick thought exchanging a look with Lisa he could see that she was thinking the same thing that he was. They'd been wanting to really get a look at the technology that the people of this galaxy used as they knew very little about it – beyond the fact that the weapons and materials they used in ship construction were woefully inferior to their own weapons and ship armour – now though they could really get a look. And from there start to get a real idea of this galaxies actual level of technological development and how it compared to their own. Plus, if the crew of the _Twilight Monsoon_ were amenable to talking to them, it would give them a civilian prospective on how things were in this galaxy as there was only so much you could learn from a probing the memories of captured soldiers.

"I see so what are you currently doing captain?"

"We're currently folding the _Twilight Monsoon_ to a location that Captain Edmodarn referred to as the Calanda Expanse. It's apparently a massive nebula complex that's far off most hyperspace lanes – whatever those are. We should be arriving in another couple of minutes. I have already invited Captain Edmodarn to come aboard once we defold to discuss their precise requirements. We should reach our defold point in another two or three minutes."

"Then I will let you go. When you arrive at your defold coordinates relay them to us and remain there as long as it is safe to do so," Rick ordered, "another ship will be dispatched to rendezvous with you and provide the appropriate replacement parts."

"Aye sir," Halsey acknowledged before Rick tapped a control breaking the communications link from his end. Immediately the holographic screen pixeled out of existence as the projector field powered down. Rick turned to look at his wife.

"Well that was an interesting series of developments," he commented with a wry grin. "Any thoughts on them Lisa?"

"While it wasn't in his orders to intervene in a situation such as this, I cannot fault Captain Halsey for doing so," Lisa replied gaining a nod of agreement from Rick as from the report Halsey had done everything he could to avoid confrontation and to warn the Black Sun pirates off only for the pirates to continue threatening him and his ship. And promptly gotten themselves, and their ship, reduced to a cloud of dust and incandescent plasma for their insolence. "Though he could have avoided using the synchro cannon especially given how much weaker and inferior in construction the warships in this galaxy seem to be compared to back home. We're going to have to do something about that."

"I intend to," Rick answered even as part of him, the part that had had to become something of a bureaucrat as such things were inevitable as you rose into the higher ranks, began working on the modifications to be made to standard REF rules of engagement to forbid the use of strategic energy and missile weapons in combat unless their was no other choice.

"As for the crew of the _Twilight Monsoon_ if they can be trusted then they could in the long term be of great value to us. If they can't be trusted… well we could easily repair their ship and send them on their way after wiping all recollections of us from their minds and computer records," Lisa added though she knew it was largely an unnecessary observation as Rick would already be well aware of the possibilities the _Twilight Monsoon_ and her crew opened up for them to explore. She paused however before speaking again knowing her husband might not like this next bit.

"I should go and meet with them," she said at last. "I am after all a member of the Sentinel's High Council and the closest thing in this fleet to a professional diplomat."

Rick frowned for a moment not really liking the idea of Lisa leaving the safety of the SDF-3. Ever since her near death at Edwards hands, and the loss of their unborn child at that man's traitorous hands, Lisa's health had been somewhat on the fragile side. It was one of the reasons why she'd ultimately chosen to retire from military life. The part of him that was the loving husband hated the idea of her leaving the ship, especially as he wouldn't be able to be present to take care of her if she went through a rough patch either physically or emotionally. But the other part of him – the admiral – had to acknowledge that Lisa had a point, being a member of the Sentinels High Council, she was the closest thing he had on hand to a professional diplomat and thus would be the logical choice to meet with the crew of the _Twilight Monsoon_.

After a moment he sighed. "Alright go," he said. "Take one of the battleships, they'll need their heavy fabrication plants anyways to manufacture the replacement parts the _Twilight Monsoon_ needs."

Lisa smiled pleased beyond measure that she wouldn't have to argue with Rick to get to go. She hated it when they had fights as they tended to last quite awhile given that both herself and Rick could be stubborn mules and had to have the last word in an argument. "I'll head over to the _Agamemnon_ then," she said. "As soon as we receive the coordinates for this Calanda Expanse from the _Tanganyika_ we should be able to depart the fleet."

Rick grinned. "You better go and get ready then," he said, "in the meantime I'll get a shuttle prepared for you." _And let the Agamemnon's captain know your coming and to prepare appropriate quarters for you,_ he thought with an inward smile as he wondered if Lisa was actually aware of who the new captain of the _Agamemnon_ was. If she wasn't then it would certainly be a nice surprise for her to find out when her shuttle landed aboard the battleship.

"Thank you, Rick," Lisa replied before giving her husband of more than twenty years an affectionate peck on the cheek and leaving the admiral's ready room on her way back to their quarters to pack a bag suitable for a few nights away. Rick watched her leave for a few moments, a slight goofy smile that wouldn't have looked out of place on his younger self on his face as he felt where Lisa had kissed him with one hand. Not for the first time he remembered just how much he loved her.

After a few more moments however he shook himself and pressed a control on the comm panel. "Hunter to bridge," he said.

"Lieutenant Pren here sir go ahead," Lieutenant Pren responded immediately.

"Lieutenant have a shuttle prepared to transfer Ambassador Hunter to the _Agamemnon_. Also hail the _Agamemnon_ tell her captain I need to speak with her privately. Route the communication through here."

"Aye sir," Pren acknowledged before signing off to begin carrying out his orders.

For several more minutes nothing happened then the projector field over his desk activated again and a holographic screen pixeled into existence showing the face and upper torso of the _Agamemnon's_ captain. Rick noted immediately that she was backdropped by her own ready room aboard the Eisenhower-class battleship which was almost as big as his own.

"Rick this is a surprise what can I do for you," asked Vanessa Leeds.

"Hey Vanessa," Rick said in greeting not at all put out by her informal greeting as one of the few fellow survivors of the SDF-1 and New Macross the two of them had been friends for many years. Though he wasn't as close to the last of the SDF-1's bridge bunnies as Lisa was, he was aware that if it hadn't been for Lisa then Vanessa would have likely committed suicide after the deaths of her fellow bridge bunnies, Claudia and Admiral Gloval so great was the depression and survivors guilt she'd been wracked with after being pulled out of the shattered, half-flooded ruins of the SDF-1's bridge. Only kindness and patience from Lisa had saved her from drowning in that ocean of pain and misery.

"I wanted to tell you Lisa is coming over I have a mission for you both," Rick told her which prompted Vanessa to sit up straighter.

"What is it," she asked sounding both surprised and intrigued. Rick hastened to explain everything that had happened with the _Tanganyika_ and the _Twilight Monsoon_ and how Lisa was going to speak with the freighters crew when they arrived at the nebula complex known as the Calanda Expanse.

All in all, it took five minutes and at the end Vanessa was nodding in understanding. "I understand," she said, "I'll have quarters prepared for Lisa and then meet her in the bay when her shuttle lands. Don't worry Rick, I'll look after her."

"I know you will Vanessa. Just do me a favour and comm me when you get to the Calanda Expanse." The _so I know you've arrived safely,_ went unsaid though from the way Vanessa nodded and smiled she'd heard it as clear as day.

"Not a problem," she assured him. "But if there is nothing else, I better go and get all this organised on my end."

"No nothing else. Good luck out there."

"To us both," Vanessa replied before signing off making the holoscreen vanish with all the fuss of a bursting soap bubble. Rick sighed softly to himself wishing that he could see Lisa off, unfortunately he was still on duty and would be for another four hours. Which meant he couldn't, in good conscience, leave his post even though he knew for a fact that none of his crew would think any less of him if he should do so. With a sigh he forced himself to put Lisa's departure from the ship out of his mind and to get back to his paperwork.

After all the job of an admiral in the Robotech Expeditionary Force was never done.

* * *

 **UES Tanganyika**

 **A Few Minutes Earlier**

Captain Kaidan Halsey sighed in relief as the communications link with the SDF-3 closed down. He was beyond relieved that Admiral Hunter hadn't been too upset by his actions in destroying the Black Sun vessel after the pirates foolishly challenged them. He had thought, well feared, that the admiral would ream him out about disobeying orders to avoid confrontation with any of this galaxy's warships if at all possible. It was therefore more of a relief than he cared to think that his superior officer hadn't been mad but had, instead, seemingly realized that the situation with the _Twilight Monsoon_ actually presented them with a unique intelligence gathering opportunity.

"I am so glad that went well," he said, naturally no one answered since he was alone in his ready room. Mentally he shook himself, he had to get his head back in the game as they would be unfolding at this Calanda Expanse in another few minutes and thus he needed to get back to the bridge. Calmly he stood up and made his way back to the bridge.

"Status report," he ordered as he stepped back into the surprisingly bright, airy space of the bridge.

"We're coming up on our defold point sir," navigation reported. "Defold operation will commence in forty seconds."

"Understood," Kaidan replied as he sat down in the command chair.

For another few moments quiet dominated the bridge with the only sounds being the faint swishing of the ventilation system and the occasional soft bleeps from various console stations as the crew carried out their duties and prepped the ship to return to normal space. Finally, though a faint whirr of power ran through the ship and outside the shimmering lines of the hyperspace wormhole transformed into a whirling sphere of what appeared to be frosted glass. But only for a moment as with a gyroscopic flicker of bluish light the fold sphere evaporated, and the view of normal space returned.

And what a spectacular view it was.

Looking far nearer than it likely was space was dominated by a truly vast nebula complex that instantly reminded everyone somewhat painfully of their home galaxy. The reason being that the vast cloud of blue-white, green and red gas shot through with darker ribbons of interstellar dust that was the Calanda Expanse was practically a dead ringer for the Great Nebula of Orion. At least at a first glance, on a second glance this nebula complex was not only considerably denser with more veins and ribbons of dust than Orion but seemed to be far, far larger.

"Beautiful," Veronica said softly from the first officers' station though everyone on the bridge heard her as clear as day.

"That it is," Kaidan agreed. "But enough gawping everyone, we have work to do. Sensors what's the status of our little hitchhiker? Have they come through the space fold alright?"

"They appear to have sir," sensors reported immediately.

"Excellent. Sparks hail the _Twilight Monsoon_ and ask if they are ready to come aboard," Kaidan ordered. "Advise them that if they prefer, we can send a shuttle over to them rather than have them dock alongside."

"Aye sir," Sparks replied from the communications station.

"Sir long range sensors are detecting something strange," sensors reported, "two somethings actually."

"What is it," Kaidan asked instantly alert.

"Sir we're detecting a large group of what appear to be space-dwelling organisms passing through the system heading towards the outer edge of the nebula," sensors replied sounding surprised. Kaidan couldn't blame him as while space dwelling organisms were not unknown back in the Milky Way, they were extremely rare. So rare in fact that to the best of his knowledge no Terran had ever actually seen one, though they knew from Tirolian and Karbarran records that such creatures did exist.

"Are they coming anywhere near us?"

"Negative sir if they stay on their current course then the creatures should pass us with several hundred megametres to spare."

"Keep an eye on them and let me know if their course changes. If it doesn't then just get as much information on them as possible with the sensors. I'm sure Dr Lang and the other eggheads back aboard the SDF-3 would like to see it."

"Aye sir."

"What's the other contact?" Kaidan asked.

"It's deeper in the system and I cannot get a clear reading, the nebula is putting out a great deal of interference, but we're picking up a large number of contacts deeper in the system. Distance one hundred thousand megametres. They could either be ships or possibly a dense cluster of asteroids."

"We better check to make sure. Flight control launch a wing of fighters, have them close with the contacts and investigate further."

"Aye sir," the officer at launch control replied.

"Sir Captain Edmodarn indicates that he will shuttle over to meet with you," Sparks reported, "however he declines our offer of a shuttle as he has a small shuttle docked within the structure of the _Twilight Monsoon_. He estimates that he and his astromech droid – whatever that is – will be able to come over within fifteen minutes."

"Acknowledge that and indicate that we agree Sparks. Be sure to send Captain Edmodarn the proper approach and docking instructions."

"Aye sir."

* * *

 **Imperial Star Destroyer Chimera**

 **Orbiting Lothal, That Same Time**

Grand Admiral Thrawn stood with his normal coolness around the situation table at the back of the _Chimera's_ bridge. Also, around the table were in person Grand Moff Tarkin and Governor Pryce while in attendance via hologram were the forms of the Sith Lord Darth Vader, Colonel Yularen and Admiral Versio. Silence reigned as the six high ranked Imperial officers and officials observed the data logs recovered from the broken ruins of the Imperial Star Destroyers _Vengeance_ and _Oath Sworn_. It had taken Imperial technicians and slicers days to recover the data from the badly damaged recorders but now they could at last observe the full battle between the 103rd task force and the unknown but obviously highly advanced newcomers.

And what they saw was quite frankly horrifying.

Mutters of disbelief came from both Versio and Yularen as they six individuals watched heavy turbolaser bolts from the _Judicator_ – bolts powerful enough to rip many a smaller warship apart with a single shot – streak towards the alien flagship and seemingly do nothing to it. Most of the shots were intercepted well short of the ship, shattering upon impact with some kind of translucent yellow-green energy field that appeared literally right in their path making them dissolve into a spray of sparklers as the supercharged plasma bolts lost all cohesion. Those few that did slip past to hit the hull of the alien warship seemed to do absolutely no damage to it, only creating a short lived, albeit very pretty, lightshow where they hit the armour band.

The same could not be said for the alien weapons as they fired back. The bright whitish-blue beams – each beam having a bore measured in meters – slammed into the _Judicator's_ shields with searing white-hot force and an electrostatic flash, before actually punching through the barrier to scorch the Star Destroyer's hull making the entire vessel visibly shudder with the sheer force of impact. Within a few seconds another exchange of fire took place between the two flagships, the alien vessel again seemingly sustaining no damage, though the same could not be said for the _Judicator_ as the alien beams collapsed her shields and ripped deep into the hull inflicting horrendous damage with their strike. A following salvo of missiles sent the Star Destroyer spinning out of control powerless and burning.

All around Imperial ships could be seen fighting a furiously but futile battle against the unknowns. Turbolasers and ion cannons seemingly to do absolutely nothing to their enemies while the alien weapons tore entire ships apart with an effortless ease. Even Thrawn had to flinch slightly as they watched a trio of the lethal blue beams literally slice a light cruiser in half, the beams coming from one of the smallest alien ships present yet being no less lethal for it.

Soon the battle ended with the battered _Oath Sworn_ and both Interdictor cruisers retreating from the battle under orders from Admiral Durril while the rest of the other officers once proud fleet either hung broken and burning in space or reduced to clouds of irradiated dust and plasma.

"Opinions," Tarkin said breaking the silence letting none of the combination of envy at the alien firepower, fear at said firepower and the ease with which it had torn an Imperial fleet powerful enough to pacify an entire sector apart in just five minutes that he felt show in his voice.

"These newcomers are obviously extremely powerful and thus a very grave threat to the peace and stability of the Empire," Admiral Versio commented, "do we have any idea exactly who they are?"

"Unfortunately, no though we do know that they appear to be human," Thrawn replied before manipulating the controls to pull up a log transmitted from the last sentry droid on the derelict RSD _Kimbala_ in the moments before the vessel was destroyed precipitating the battle with – no the slaughter – of the 103rd task force. Immediately a new hologram appeared showing a group of humans in strange but very functional looking armour in one of the crew recreation lounges aboard the derelict vessel. What immediately caught everyone's attention was the fact that, despite the gravity being off as evidenced by all the floating debris, they were all standing comfortably. Indicating the presence of magnetic soles in their thick, functional looking combat boots.

As per protocol most of the sentry droids came in and engaged the intruders – heavy blaster bolts missing as the unknowns immediately took cover. Took cover before fighting back their rifles spitting out blue energy bolts – that looked very similar to the beams fired by the capital ships – at the sentry droids. The battle ended fast with the unknown humans working with admirable speed and efficiency to destroy the droids – with only the final droid – which as per protocol had hung back to observe – being spared.

"The fight very well," Yularen commented. "I have not seen such swift and efficient defensive action since the clone troopers were retired."

"Shortly after this fight the unknowns withdrew from the _Kimbala_ but left something behind that ultimately caused the ship to be destroyed," Thrawn told his colleagues. "I believe it is likely that the other members of the sentry droid detachment aboard attacked their boarding craft and repelled. It is clear that if threatened these newcomers respond aggressively and leave no enemies alive."

"Which is probably why they destroyed the ship to eliminate any remaining sentry droids," Yularen commented. "What about the alien weapons do we know anything about them?"

"Very little," Thrawn replied, "from the sensor logs of our ships we believe that the weapons are some type of particle beam, likely proton based however we cannot be certain at this time. Based upon this conclusion I had an analyst run a projection based on how powerful the weapons would have to be in comparison to our own to do the damage they did."

"What did you find," Vader asked.

"That every second these beams emit as much energy as a dozen heavy anti-ship proton torpedoes," Thrawn replied, "and I do not believe based on the battle that the unknowns were using their weapons at full capacity. If you observe the battle the alien beams are only every aimed at weapons systems or engines. It is my belief that the unknowns were attempting to disable our ships but overestimated the amount of power they needed to use."

"Disabling strikes but they ripped our ships apart," Versio commented. "Kriff if that is what they can do when trying to disable then what would they be able to do to us if they deliberately aim to kill."

"Our ships would be destroyed in seconds," Vader replied the Sith Lord actually sounding a little intimidated by the sheer potential power of the alien weapons. Something that was very uncharacteristic for Vader. "It appears that these newcomers are indeed the threat that the Emperor has foreseen."

"Kriffing hell how can anyone be that powerful," Yularen asked. "And how can our weapons not do any damage to the unknowns ships."

"Unknown," Thrawn replied. "And you are incorrect Colonel Yularen our weapons actually did inflict some damage to the unknowns but not much observe."

Thrawn manipulated the table control again and brought up a holo of part of the battle, before zooming in on the alien flagship. In slow motion they watched as a heavy turbolaser bolt hit the hull with a brilliant flash of light that after a few microseconds spread out and disappeared leaving a small blackened smudge at the point of impact.

"As you can see upon impact with the alien armour most of the turbolaser bolts energy is immediately reflected back out into space," Thrawn explained as he played the section again only slowing it down even further so they could actually see the bulk of the bolts plasmatic energy being thrown back by the hull. "The remaining energy of the bolt appears to then spread out over a wider area of the ship's hull before completely dissipating. It is therefore clear that unlike our own armour – which as you all know is designed to be purely ablative – the unknowns armour works on a combination of refraction and dispersion. There is possibly an ablative component as well, but it is hard to know at this time. What is clear is that with each hit a thin layer of armour only a few microns thick is vaporised."

"Impressive," Vader commented sounding both genuinely impressed and intrigued by the strength and capabilities of the unknown ship armour, "depending on its thickness these unknowns would be able to soak up damage that would tear our best ships apart in short order. Do we have any information on what it is made from?"

"Unfortunately, no Lord Vader," Governor Pryce replied.

"So, what do we do about this," Tarkin asked, "it is only a matter of time before the rebellion learns of this battle and the unknowns unheard of power. If they don't already know."

"Given how they managed to turn Kallus into a spy we have to assume that they already know," Yularen answered looking like he'd bitten into a sour yogan as he said that. The defection of Alexandr Kallus – one of his best students and agents – to the rebellion first as a spy and then full on defection was still a source of great discomfort for him. It meant that far too many of his agents were suspect now which was causing both himself and Admiral Versio quite a few security headaches.

"The only things we can do is set up additional counter-espionage operations to counter the rebel infiltration of our ranks," Versio added. "We should also begin deploying more probe droids and scouts to try to find the unknown fleet."

"And what do we do if we find them," Tarkin asked, "from this battle it is clear that the unknowns have a massive firepower and technological advantage over us. If any of our current ships attempt to engage them, they will certainly be destroyed."

"That is an issue the Emperor wants this threat dealt with as soon as possible," Vader answered. "I will speak with the Emperor and gain his instructions in how we are to proceed. While I do that begin search operations for the unknown fleet. However, until instructed make it clear to all commanders that they are not to engage the unknowns unless threatened first or they catch them consorting with the rebels."

"As you wish Lord Vader," Thrawn acknowledged. Vader nodded back and broke the connection from his end causing his hologram to disappear without so much as a dismissal. But then Vader was renowned for his cruelty not his absolutely abysmal manners.

"We should adjourn ourselves," Tarkin said, "Admiral Versio please work with Grand Admiral Thrawn to arrange the search."

"As you wish Governor Tarkin," Versio replied with a nod.

"Dismissed gentlemen," Tarkin added causing all the holograms to disappear. He then turned to look at Pryce, "Governor Pryce are the survivors we recovered from the fleet well enough to be questioned over what they saw yet."

"Most of them are yes," Pryce confirmed. "However, we still have three officers in bacta tanks at the central hospital with severe plasma burns. The doctors and medical droids inform me that it is still touch and go whether they will survive."

"That will do you and I will go an interview those survivors well enough to be questioned," Tarkin said decisively. "Thrawn…"

"I will begin organising the search," Thrawn finished for him gaining a nod of agreement from Tarkin before the two governors left leaving Thrawn alone. For his part the Chiss tapped a control and brought up an image of the alien flagship. _Could these people be the allies my kind need against the Grysk,_ he thought momentarily thinking about the real reason he had joined the Empire, the true mission he'd been assigned by the Ascendancy.

After a few moments of thought he dismissed the hologram and began making preparations to organise the search for the unknowns. Though once that was done, he would return to the privacy of his private chambers and consider the possibility the unknowns could indeed be the ally the Chiss had searched so long and hard for.

Until then though he had much to do.

* * *

 **Author Notes: Well another chapter bites the dust. I hope you all enjoyed it and I know that there was no action in this chapter but then this chapter was needed to set things up for a few discoveries and establish the basis of some later plot points. Hopefully the next chapter won't be so long in coming.**


End file.
